


Lars & Organa (Book 3: Faith)

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Lars & Organa [3]
Category: Star Wars Episode V: Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Luke and Leia Switched, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-03-27 11:19:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13879782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: "Always in motion, is the future"Luke Organa and Leia Skywalker move one step closer to fulfilling their destinies... but their pasts are starting to catch up with them.A retelling of the events of "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back" if Luke and Leia had been switched at birth. (Book 3 of 4)





	1. Frozen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note from the Author:  
> Hi friends! Welcome to Book 3! Much like the original ESB, this book is where it starts to get darker. Stuff is going to go down. It's going to hurt.
> 
> I'm putting in a preface here because there's going to be some discussion of consent in this book, related to how Jedi Mind Tricks are kind of effed up if you think about it. Nothing related to sexual content, but I'll put up a content warning when specific chapters deal with it.
> 
> Saddle up your tauntauns: the ride is about to begin.

Just breathe.

It’s been months, but there’s nothing wrong with that. 

Nothing is wrong. 

It’s just Camie. 

Nevertheless, Leia Skywalker’s fingers shook a little as she keyed in the secure comm code, and her breathing hitched as she waited for the first response. 

“Leia?” Camie finally said, answering. “Is it really you?”

“Hi,” was all Leia could think to say. 

“Took you long enough,” Camie said with a smile. 

Even though Camie was joking, Leia blushed with embarrassment. It had been months since she was on her home planet of Tatooine, but it felt like she had been gone for years. Back then, she was the leader of an increasingly powerful gang fighting the Hutt cartels. She had freed slaves. She had taken out bounty hunters, criminals, and Imperials. And, on top of all that, she had trained as a Jedi. 

Now, things were different. One of her best friends had been killed, her gang had gone to ground, and she had fled the planet. Her Jedi Master was dead. And now she was a pilot in the Rebel Alliance, the slayer of the Death Star, and a minor celebrity. 

Back on Tatooine, she had led a double life: the desert farmgirl and the Padawan fighting for justice. Now she didn’t know what she was. 

“I’m just trying to keep my head down like you told me,” Leia said. She gave a smile of her own. “How am I doing so far?”

“Abysmally,” Camie snarked. “I heard through some spacer contacts that you’re a Rebel now. How did  _ that _ happen?”

“You can blame Ben for that, I think,” Leia said. Her face sobered. “He… we were captured by Imperials. They killed him.” Of course, by “they” she really meant “Darth Vader, the most powerful Force user in the galaxy and the Emperor’s attack dog” but she was pretty sure that telling Camie that part would be more trouble than it was worth. 

She still woke up in the night screaming at the memory of watching Ben die at Vader’s hands. 

Eventually, Dark Side be damned, Vader was going to pay for that. 

“I’m sorry,” Camie said with sympathetic eyes. “He was an amazing person. I can’t believe he agreed to teach a bunch of little kids like us how to beat people up with sticks,” she said with a laugh. 

“I know, right?” The Twin Suns gang would have been smashed into a pulp in its infancy without Ben’s (reluctant) help and advice.

“How much can you tell me about the Rebellion?” Camie asked.

“Not much. Still on the run. Secret bases, code names, all that stuff.”

“Not too different from keeping our cover in Twin Suns, actually,” she said. 

“Exactly,” Leia agreed. Then tried to brighten up a little. “But I bet you have stuff you could tell  _ me _ \-- how is everyone?”

“Mostly fine: Beru and Owen were questioned by Imperials when you left, but they’re okay. Only one night in prison and then the locals threw a fit. Farm seems to be doing well, especially with the Jawas finally agreeing to trading with Anchorhead as a bloc instead of a bunch of individual farms.”

“Let me guess: Biggs laid on the charm?”

“You’ve guessed correctly!” Camie laughed. “He and Fixer convinced the Jawas that they’d get better deals if they started directly trading stuff instead of scavenging it all the time. Biggs is even working on connecting them with the Raiders, if you can believe it!”

Leia could barely believe it. It had been enough of a gamble organizing the fragile peace between the local Tusken Raiders and the farmers of Anchorhead. Most of the folks of her aunt and uncle’s generation still remembered back when the Raiders used to kidnap locals for ransom; after a hot-headed local (nobody wanted to name names) massacred a Raider camp, a full-scale war had nearly erupted in the region. It had taken a lot of bribery, threatening, cajoling, and reasoning on the part of Twin Suns in order to even get the Sandpeople to agree to any negotiations. Leia had been working on getting a trade agreement in place when she was forced to leave the planet; she was pleased to hear that things were progressing even without her. 

Without her. That did sting a little.

“Biggs, incidentally,” Camie continued, “has been infiltrating the local Imp units so hard that we had a period of time when we were worried he had actually joined up.”

Leia laughed, in spite of the situation. She wouldn’t have doubted Biggs; they knew one another too well. 

“And, uh, Fix and I… well…” Camie shifted position: she was massively pregnant.

Leia, badass gang leader and bane of Imperials, squealed and clapped her hands in delight. 

Camie burst out laughing. “Yeah, yeah, it’s  _ magical _ ,” she said with rolled eyes. “I can’t sleep half the time and I waddle everywhere. I want this kid  _ out _ . Fix and I got married not too long after you left. We were all just so shaken by what happened to Tank that we wanted something stable… and one thing led to another…”

Leia’s heart ached at the mention of Tank, but she still smiled. “I wish I could have been there,” she said. 

“Well, get your ass back here and you can make it up to everyone.”

“First chance I get, I promise.” Leia missed Tatooine so much right now that it was practically a physical pain. The biggest hurdle in her Jedi training had been her attachments to her friends; it had been a long-standing debate between her and Ben. She wasn’t ever planning on giving up her friends.

“How soon will that be?”

Leia hesitated. Camie gave a worried half-frown. “You’re in deep, huh?” she asked Leia. 

“A little deep. There are some… complications.”

Complications like wanting to see Luke again; the Alderaanian prince had been shuttled off to do diplomatic work almost immediately after the Battle of Yavin. She was pretty sure that her feelings for Luke were platonic--when he wasn’t being a whiny prince he was actually someone who could have fit in with her friends at home--but that didn’t negate the fact that she still felt strongly about him. They had shared grief and whiskey together. 

Complications like the Rebellion itself. Leia still thought that she could do more good at home on Tatooine, but she couldn’t deny that she was part of something bigger than herself now. Her squadmates depended on her. Her commanders depended on her. She couldn’t bail on them now, not with the ranks of Red Squadron still so slim after the assault on the Death Star. Deaths that she helped cause. 

Complications like Han. And Chewie, frankly; the Wookiee was a little cross with her for being the reason why Han had decided to stick around with the Rebellion. And Wookiees could hold a grudge; he was technically still mad at her for semi-dumping Han almost three years ago. 

It’s not as though she meant to make Han stay; she certainly hadn’t  _ asked  _ him to stay. He just shrugged and did whatever job needed doing, while occasionally cheerfully cracking jokes about how the Rebellion still owed him fifteen thousand credits and how he would be adding each new task to the bill. He didn’t seem content exactly, but seemed to have found an equilibrium that she couldn’t quite reach yet. 

And  _ she _ was the Jedi. Well, the almost-Jedi. 

Whenever she was feeling homesick, or agitated, or after a particularly bad dream about Ben, she found herself seeking Han out. He originally had just been sleeping on his ship but, citing the cold, had moved into the Rebel barracks; Leia suspected it was actually to make it easier for her to find him. 

Not that there was much privacy to be found on Echo Base. 

It was complicated. 

Camie sighed. “Well, we’ll be here waiting. Just… just don’t take too long, okay? We all miss you.  _ I  _ miss you. Fix is doing his best as our ‘fearless leader’... but you’re the one who was actually fearless.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Leia promised, fighting the urge to key in the hyperspace coordinates for home immediately. 

“Good. Things have quieted down enough that no one will be looking for you.”

“Except the Hutts, the Imperials on their payroll, half a dozen bounty hunters…” Leia counted off on her fingers. 

Camie smirked. “Right, except that.” Her face sobered. “Be careful.”

“I will.” Leia signed off the comm and turned her X-wing back towards the ice planet of Hoth. Any comms sent directly from the planet’s surface could betray the location of the Rebel base. It was easier to fool any Imperial monitors while out in deep space. 

Her X-wing had become like a second home for her ever since arriving on Hoth. For all of the base’s attempts at climate control, it couldn’t keep the bone-chilling cold of the planet’s surface from creeping in. The small cockpit of the X-wing heated up far faster and could be set more easily to a temperature that she preferred.

As a girl from a desert planet, she hated the cold. 

She remembered hearing from Ben that a Jedi with sufficient control could survive in extreme environments, or even heal themselves in trances. She never had the chance to learn, however. 

She landed her ship in the chilly docking bay on the west side of the base. It was a tighter fit than it used to be, due to a recent group of Sullustan fighters arriving, having been guided to Echo Base by Rebel intelligence. Luke’s recruitment efforts must be going well. 

Leia climbed slowly (and reluctantly) out of her cockpit and headed towards the command center. She had only been able to make this call to Camie because she agreed to intercept the most recent relay from Rebel intelligence. 

She was surprised to find Han there when she arrived. He was in discussion with General Rieekan, the head of the Rebel Alliance forces on Hoth. 

“...plenty of other things that he could have run into. Our scans have reported some signs of local fauna large enough to prey on tauntauns.”

“I might be able to take the  _ Falcon _ ,” Han offered. 

“Too risky,” Rieekan countered. “We’re still having trouble adapting our speeders to the cold; I can’t imagine your ship faring any better, especially in the temperatures at night. Better to wait until morning.”

“The Sixty-First is already screaming to be allowed to mount a rescue,” Han said. “If we don’t do  _ something _ , they’re going to--” He paused as he noticed Leia. “Well, hey there, princess,” he said with a grin and a wink. 

“Don’t mind me,” Leia said, blushing. “Just dropping this off,” she added, holding up the chip containing her ship’s recordings of the intelligence relay.

“Ah, good,” Rieekan said, taking the chip from her. He looked back at Han. “I’m trusting you to deal with them and to keep them from doing anything foolish. Any ships sent out there are at risk of stalling out, so if there’s a rescue mission, make sure that it’s tauntaun  _ only _ .” 

Han sighed and headed out. Leia followed him. “What happened?” she asked. 

“Carver went out on patrol and never came back,” Han said grimly. “The rest of his squadron is going nuts and are this close to mounting a full on assault on the damn  _ snow _ if someone doesn’t come up with a good idea.”

“The general suggested tauntauns; why not those?”

“Problem is, we don’t have that many of them and the area we have to cover is large. Carver went off comms with his partner in order to go investigate a signal in the northeast and that’s the last we heard from him. As you might expect, his partner is ready to go back out there even if it kills his tauntaun in the process.”

“I could go; I’m probably better at scanning for people through the Force than any scanners we could get working in this frozen hell,” Leia pointed out. 

Han gave her a skeptical look. “You’d go out there? You’re already wearing so many layers I’m surprised you can put your arms down.”

“I’m not saying I’d do it without  _ complaining _ ,” Leia countered. 

Han shrugged. “Then let’s go get some gear.” 

“You’re coming too?”

“Of course I’m coming,” Han said, almost surprised. “What, you think I’d miss a chance to watch you discover what  _ real _ cold is like?”

* * *

Real cold was  _ terrible _ .

She had shivered so much that her bones and muscles had locked down into durasteel-like tension. Her hands had unconsciously balled up into fists and her jaw was clenched. Everything  _ ached _ . 

“This is the worst!” she screamed into the blowing wind and snow. Worse still, it was beginning to get dark. 

Han gave no indication that he had heard her. “Any sign yet?” he yelled over the wind.

“A few flickers,” she yelled back, “but that could just as easily be wild tauntauns.” A thought occurred to her. “What do we do if Carver’s wounded?”

Han patted a pocket on the front of his jacket. “I brought along a high frequency beacon that should be enough to be picked up by Echo Base. Hopefully the snowspeeders will be functioning in the morning; they’re two-seaters, unlike tauntauns.” His mount squawked, as if in response. 

Tauntauns were notoriously skittish creatures, but were easy to tame for riding. They were good at navigating the snow and avoiding spots that might be too unstable to walk on. Snowspeeders would be faster, though. And warmer, Leia reflected wistfully. 

Something flickered in the Force in the distance. Disorientation, mixed with a persistent pain. 

“That way,” she pointed. However, the tauntauns were hesitant to go in that direction and it involved a good deal of cajoling and tugging the reins in order to get them closer. Eventually they dug their heels in and refused to continue. 

“I guess we’ll have to walk, then,” Han said with a shrug. “Hopefully we find Carver before we fall into a pit or something.”

“He’s close,” Leia said. 

They trudged through the snow. Walking on it should have been comparable to navigating the dunes on Tatooine, but somehow the snow was even more frustrating: hard when it should have been soft, powdery when she was counting on it to hold her weight. Even with the special boots she was wearing, she slid around like a drunken mynock.

Up ahead, she caught sight of a cave. “That must be where he took shelter,” she told Han. 

“Good thinking, Carver,” Han said. 

As they entered the cave, though, Leia’s sense of Carver’s disorientation increased. Something was wrong. 

Han shone a light from his jacket into the cave. “I don’t see him.” The cave was full of stalactites and stalagmites that made the inside of the cave into a labyrinth that swallowed up the light. “Wait,” Han said. Leia sensed his sudden horror. “Look up,” he said. 

Leia looked up at one of the stalactites; something was inside. It was the half-eaten remains of a tauntaun. The next one was a Carver, bloodied but alive, hanging upside down by his feet. 

“Give me a boost,” Leia told Han. Climbing on his shoulders, she was able to reach the part of the ceiling where Carver’s feet were encased in ice. She carefully used her lightsaber to cut him down. 

“I’m impressed those things work in the cold,” Han admitted, looking at the saber. 

“Hang on,” Leia said, her senses prickling. “There’s something else in here.”

“Whatever ate that tauntaun.” 

Leia reignited her lightsaber. “Shh,” she said, gesturing at Han to stand back. As she turned back to look back into the maze of ice--

\--it came out of nowhere, somehow. Claws slashed at her arm, sending her lightsaber flying. 

She heard Han firing his blaster.

Have to get the lightsaber. Reach out with the Force…

And then the creature was on top of her, carrion breath screaming in her face. 

“Stop!” Leia cried, flinging back the creature using the Force. Her shoulder was dislocated, her arm was bleeding, and she was still seeing stars from hitting the ice when she fell. 

Instinct overtook reason. It was as though a giant invisible hand had picked up the creature and slammed it back against the nearest wall of the cave. Its arms waved futilely, grasping for leverage…

...and then it began pawing at its own neck. 

Dimly, Leia felt her uninjured hand squeeze into a fist. 

Not enough. Harder. 

The creature kept struggling, its roars turned to wheezing. 

Harder. She clenched her other fist.

Agony rolled down her injured arm and she nearly fainted. 

Released, the creature raced past her.

Leia heard the hum of her lightsaber. She turned in time to watch Han finish his swing and see the creature fall over, dead. 

Switching it off, he ran to her side. “Are you okay?”

Following an unpleasant minute of shoulder-relocation, she found herself in tears without knowing why. 

“What’s going on?” Han asked, worried. He was bending over Carver, examining his injuries. 

“I don’t know… I don’t know,” she said. 

It wasn’t the experience of near death; that much she knew. She had had closer brushes with it while in Twin Suns, nor was it the post-battle adrenaline or the shock from her injury. 

It was  _ panic _ . 

Closing her eyes, she tried to breathe. 

The creature had attacked her and she was in pain and then the pain became anger and the anger had become hate and then she had reached out and--

Leia opened her eyes with a gasp. 

She had used the Dark Side.


	2. Nova

Luke didn’t think he was all that special. 

By night, he was just another exhausted young man, having survived another day of furtive gatherings, another baring of his trauma, another desperate plea. Another small glimmer of hope, only to be crushed under the weight of knowing that tomorrow he was going to have to get up and do it all again. 

By night, he counted the days until he could finally rest. 

By day, however, he was something eternal. 

By day, he was Luke Organa, Rebel Prince and tragic hero. 

He had survived so much, they said. 

He had been so brave. 

He wanted to scream. 

Every conversation was a delicate dance, a back and forth where he had to balance a look of quiet strength with small intentional moments of pain. Not that pain was hard to dig up: Alderaan, and everyone he had ever loved, was gone. But to use it intentionally, to bring people into his pain and let them sit there with him, meant playing the part of a gracious host. He had to tidy it up, those horrible memories. He had to let them look. 

He had stopped being his own person when Tarkin ordered the destruction of his home. Now he belonged to the galaxy. 

He had to make the most of it.

His mournful blue eyes were practically the stuff of legend at this point. Staring into them, one couldn’t help but see the losses he had endured and the privations he had suffered. He had moved more than one shipping magnate or regional governor to tears with those eyes. But behind that pain, his eyes would silently promise, lay a core of strength, a place of resilience, an iron will to take on all the injustice in the galaxy and  _ win _ . 

And, sometimes only after a few minutes, they would rally to his cause. Funds were sent, troops were promised, allegiance was sworn. Some days, he felt like he could turn the heart of the Emperor himself with a few well-chosen words. 

Commander Willard had been wrong. There was glory in this. 

He was beloved. 

And he hated it. 

* * *

“Your next appointment,” the protocol droid said, “is the reception for the Bothan Ambassadorial Corps tonight.”

Luke sighed. Evening events were the worst part. It meant more Imperial scrutiny, more elaborate disguises, and less sleep. Tomorrow morning he was due to leave on a transport from Chandrila to Mon Calamari, to make yet  _ another _ attempt at persuading the Mon Cals out of neutrality. They were loud, opinionated, and frustratingly hard to read. 

“You will be assuming the identity of Dars Dunate, a local aide in the Office of Intergalactic Cooperation,” Threepio continued. “You are a relative newcomer to the job, having attended school offworld on Coruscant until recently, which will serve as adequate cover for your lack of knowledge of both your duties and local affairs. Essentially, act ignorant of nearly everything and you should be fine.”

Threepio was his liaison at this particular stop. Along the way, he had been put in contact with a series of droids assigned to him by Rebel intelligence. Threepio, having been his aide at the foundation on Alderaan, was his preferred contact; most protocol droids were a little eccentric, but at least he was familiar with this one’s eccentricities. 

“During this particular season,” Threepio said, “the fashion is extremely close-fitting clothes on men, which will unfortunately keep you from bringing much of anything with you. Therefore, your emergency beacon will have to be secured on a piece of jewelry. Please try not to get mugged this time.”

Luke winced. His mission on Duro had been a rare failure. 

“At any rate, your contact will be the one to get in touch with you. For security reasons, all we know is that their code name is Nova. They will act as liaison to a member of the Bothan Spynet.”

Luke nodded. “Anyone likely to recognize me?”

“Yes, which bring me to my next point, in fact. There is a 54.0984-to-one chance that Chandrilan Chancellor Mon Mothma may be in attendance.” Threepio handed Luke a datapad with an image of a middle-aged human woman with short auburn hair and a stern expression. “She is a former member of the Imperial Senate and, though your tenures overlapped by only a few months, there is a 74.09-to-one likelihood that she will recognize you if given at least a two-minute window to examine your facial features.”

“How dangerous is she?”

“She has a reputation as a hard-line Imperial supporter, though the severity of that stance has waned slightly in recent years. However, there are also alternative news sources that report that she has a habit of ‘disappearing’ political adversaries and Rebel sympathizers. I would advise keeping a low profile and avoiding opportunities for interaction if at all possible.”

The Empire had left Chandrila largely alone, most likely due to the fealty it had received from its Senator. There was a minimal Imperial presence on the planet, which was what made it possible for Luke to even come here in the first place. But this didn’t mean that Luke could operate with impunity. He had been publicly deemed a member of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor to the Empire. Even if there was still an Imperial Senate, his status as a Senator wouldn’t have protected him. 

“Is there any chance of procuring a fake beard?” he asked Threepio. 

* * *

He forgot how much those things  _ itched _ . It was a risk wearing one in the first place; the Imperial fashion was clean-shaven, but he needed all the help he could get if he wanted to avoid detection.

If it weren’t for the image of the Young Rebel Hero he had to maintain, he might have considered growing a real beard. It had been part of the typical look for a Jedi knight; he recalled that Obi-Wan had one as well. 

Maybe after all of this was over, he thought.

Walking into the gala with a small group of other aides and lower-status workers, Luke couldn’t help but be struck by how much it reminded him of that unpleasant event at the Rhooni’s all those years ago. Only this time, there was no Winter by his side. He was alone. 

There was even a prominent staircase in the banquet hall of the Embassy. The deja vu was almost overwhelming. He had a bad feeling about this. 

Relax. Just breathe. No one else here looks nervous; you’ll stand out, he told himself. 

The extraction beacon that Threepio had given him was embedded in a necklace in the stylized shape of a sun. It was gaudy, but it was also the signal that the Rebel agent had been told to look for. He also hoped it would be distracting enough that no one would look at his face for too long. 

Bothan music was, unfortunately, at roughly the same frequency as human speech, meaning that over half of the attendees had to scream in order to be heard. Any small talk was exhausting. Luke mingled around the refreshment tables; appearing to eat gave him a reason to not have to talk. 

He saw Mon Mothma’s auburn hair across the room before he saw the rest of her. This gave him an advantage in keeping his distance from her, though she seemed to be moving around the room quite a bit, which drove Luke nearly to distraction as he tried to not look like he was avoiding someone. He was trapped listening to a story by one of the Bothan aides (who thankfully did not have to scream to be heard) when he surreptitiously looked around to find her. 

She was about ten meters away. And looking right at him. 

Mercifully, the Bothan finished their narrative; Luke made an excuse and headed hurriedly to the washroom. 

Breathe. She might not have been looking for very long. Sure, Luke probably looked familiar, but perhaps she hadn’t recognized him yet. 

All the same, better to get out of sight for awhile and hope that Nova wasn’t looking for him at this particular moment. 

He saw Mon Mothma again as he exited the washroom. She didn’t appear to have seen him yet. There was a turbolift nearby, which he dashed to and keyed in the next floor up. 

The second floor of the Embassy was primarily offices. He found the washroom and decided to hide in there. It wasn’t dignified, but few things in his life were dignified these days. 

He had been in there only a few minutes when the door opened. 

“It’s an amateur move,” Mon Mothma said, “running to an isolated location. I expected better.” She reached for her comlink.

Luke froze. 

Instead of activating it, however, she turned a mechanism on the bottom. 

“There,” she said. “We don’t have much time, so I’m going to do most of the talking here. Nova has been intercepted by Imperial Intelligence. They’re understaffed, as usual, so they’re holding her in the security office downstairs until transport can arrive. If we time it right, we can intervene before she is taken into custody. Do you have a sidearm?”

Luke shook his head. “Are you--”

Mon Mothma held up a hand. “No. Listen. That is your job. My job is to talk. I’ll have to collect my blaster, so I will meet you in the corridor through the leftmost exit on the staircase wall. Please look slightly less terrified than you are looking right now. I can’t trust my current driver, so after we address the current emergency you’ll have to take care of our extraction.” Seeing Luke’s now-confused expression, she continued. “Yes, I said ‘our.’ This is my best window of opportunity for the foreseeable future. Now wait here for ten minutes and then proceed to our meeting place.” She twisted the bottom of her comlink again and departed. 

Luke spent the next ten minutes trying to parse what had just happened. 

* * *

“You’re two minutes late,” Mon Mothma said as he arrived in the corridor. “Let’s go.” She led him to a turbolift, which they took to the top floor.

“I thought we would be heading to the security station,” Luke said, confused. 

“They’re already moving her,” she replied. “Our window of opportunity is closing. Now hush, this turbolift is probably bugged.”

They reached the top floor, which was a series of conference rooms surrounding the door to the Ambassador’s Office. Mon Mothma keyed it open with a pass, revealing an ornate room decorated in a highly classical style, including a balcony, which she headed towards. 

“Go down to the conference room at the end of the hall and begin your extraction procedure, which I assume has something to do with that hideous thing around your neck,” she said. “I will be there shortly.” She drew her blaster. 

Luke ran for the conference room, which had a matching balcony. He pressed the beacon. Threepio had assured him that a speeder would be arrive within five minutes of pressing it. All he had to do was wait and hope that Mon Mothma had a plan for retrieving Nova. 

It then occurred to him that he had no plan for getting down. He scouted the room and had just managed to find an escape ladder by the time Mon Mothma arrived. 

“Let’s go,” she said, attaching the ladder and sliding swiftly down to the ground. Luke followed her. 

“The speeder will be meeting us here any minute now,” Luke said. “Is Nova meeting us here?”

“Not likely,” Mon Mothma said. “She’s dead.”

“They shot her? I thought they were taking her into custody!”

“They were. I was the one who shot her.”

“You  _ what _ ?”

“We couldn’t retrieve her, not with a single blaster between us,” Mon Mothma explained matter-of-factly. “She had information that would have compromised the Rebellion and our operations on Chandrila. Now the Empire will not be able to access it.”

“What is  _ wrong _ with you?” Luke said, aghast. 

The speeder arrived. 

“I took no pleasure in that action. But it had to be done. Hard choices have to be made in this universe; I’m surprised you haven’t learned that yet,” she said, climbing into the speeder. “Code name Tidal,” she said to the Rebel agent manning the speeder. He nodded; they drove off into the night. 

* * *

Hard choices, she said.

She wasn’t wrong. 

Luke was still agitated over it. Particularly with the nagging realization that, if he had been in her shoes, he would not have made that same decision. Meaning that, if it had been up to him, a valuable intelligence asset would have fallen into the hands of the Empire. 

He was a symbol of freedom, yes, but he had to remind himself: he was also the symbol of a war.

People were dying because of him. 

Was that what it meant to be a leader?

He thought back to the Death Star battle, back to his stupid decision to sacrifice himself for the good of the Rebellion, even though it would have done no good at all. Meanwhile, there were pilots who had truly sacrificed themselves to ensure that Leia could destroy the superweapon. 

And Luke had nearly ruined it all by distracting her. 

He had burned with anger when Commander Willard had castigated him after the battle, but now that anger was at himself. What had he  _ done _ ? 

And what was he doing now? Using his story and whatever charisma he possessed in order to charm them into possibly dying for him. Or, in the case of people like Mon Mothma, into killing for him. 

Was  _ that  _ what it meant to be a leader?

Don’t think about it right now, he told himself. Clear your mind. Meditate. 

He hadn’t tried since before Alderaan was destroyed. His mind hadn’t been calm enough. But maybe calm had nothing to do with it. 

In his berth on the ship to Mon Calamari, he closed his eyes.

Just breathe. 

You can do anything if you’re calm enough… but you can do  _ something _ even if you’re not. 

The waters of his thoughts kept churning. 

Something swam under the surface. 

Don’t think about that right now. 

_ Luke… _

A voice calling for him. 

_ Luke! _

Images followed. 

White snow falling into shadow. 

A dogfight in space.

A ship exploding. 

Fear. 

Something was coming. 

Something big.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, okay, so this is probably my Worst Canon Error of the series, as I a) completely forgot that Mon Mothma was in Rogue One and had already defected by this point and b) hadn't watched Rebels yet. Mea Culpa!
> 
> So here's the other question: why didn't Luke know about her? Well, here's the thing to remember: Luke isn't actually *in charge* of the Rebellion. There's stuff they aren't telling him, and Mon Mothma's actual allegiance was one of them.


	3. Spiral

It wasn’t easy to fit two people on a standard size cot. 

Leia supposed that was by design. 

They had had to wait nearly two hours until rescue arrived, at which point Carver had been stabilized. He might be in danger of losing a few toes to frostbite, but bacta would be able to save the rest of him. She had tried to wrap the wound on her arm herself, but being both emotionally and physically exhausted had taken its toll on her dexterity. Han came over and helped, and Leia had started hyperventilating again. 

She couldn’t tell him. Not about this. 

She hadn’t meant to do it. She kept repeating that to herself. It was an accident. She was young, only partially trained, and had acted on instinct. She needed to practice control. 

She had always thought that the line between the light side and the dark side was this cosmic thing, where she would be tempted and the fate of the galaxy depended on whether she embraced evil or remained committed to good. She hadn’t realized that it was so… ordinary. Just being scared and upset and angry and the next thing she knew she was choking the life out of a semi-sentient creature. 

She could have just called her lightsaber to her hand. Instead she wanted to make it  _ hurt _ , to make it  _ suffer _ . 

That was the Dark Side. 

She shivered and Han, whose chest she had been sleeping practically on top of, stirred back to consciousness. 

“Cold?” he whispered. Since Han wasn’t technically part of the Rebel armed forces, he was bunking out in one of the other rooms that had been turned into auxiliary barracks. No one else was usually in there, but still, you never knew who might barge in on you. 

“Next time,” she said, trying to cuddle beside him, “we go to the  _ Falcon _ .”

He shifted to make room and nearly tipped the cot over. “Couldn’t agree more, though Chewie might not be thrilled to be exiled to the cockpit.”

“He’s rarely thrilled with me as it is,” Leia said ruefully. “I’m sorry I don’t get along with him better.”

“He’ll get over it. Once we’re out of here.”

That stopped Leia cold. “What do you mean?” she asked. 

“Once I take you back to Tatooine, I mean.” He frowned. “What did you think I meant?”

“I just… I mean, it’s nothing, really. I just feel bad about keeping you here.”

“Hey, I’m still waiting for my payment, you know.”

“From me?”

“Nah, I figure Luke will get around to it eventually if I badger him enough.”

“Assuming he ever comes back,” Leia said glumly. Han was quiet. “What?” she asked. 

“You like him, huh?”

“Not like that.” 

“But if he came back, I mean.”

“Not the way I like you. I mean, look at where we are right this second,” she pointed out. 

“Fair point,” he admitted. “It’s just difficult not to notice that he’s a  _ literal prince _ . They write holodramas about this sort of thing.”

“We’re not in a holodrama.”

“You’re a mystical wizard, hotshot pilot, Rebel icon, and former gang leader. Your life is too  _ weird _ for holodramas, if anything.”

“Right. So,” she said, snuggling closer to him, “in that case, why would I want a prince?”

“So you’re here, then?” he asked. 

“I’m here,” she replied. “I promise.” 

He kissed her on the crown of the head. “Thanks, princess.”

They were just about to continue when a siren went off. This time they really did tip the cot over. 

“All troops, report to your stations. Imperial forces are approaching.”

Leia leapt up but Han caught her arm. 

“We’re going to have to evacuate, eventually,” he said. 

“Yes?”

“So when we do, come find me at the  _ Falcon _ .”

“What about my X-wing?”

Han frowned. “I’ll think of something. I just… maybe this would be a good time to leave. Once everyone is able to get away.”

“Go back to Tatooine, you mean?”

“Just think about it, okay?” he asked.

“I’ll think about it. But if you can’t wait for me, then go. Don’t get caught by the Imps on my account.”

“Maybe we could finally have that vacation,” he said with a smile. 

“I thought you were still waiting to get paid?”

“I’ll send Luke the bill.”

* * *

“What is  _ she _ doing here?” Ackbar said in surprise. Several of the other Mon Calamari were too shocked to even speak.

“It should be obvious,” Mon Mothma said smoothly. “I’ve defected. It is time to stop sitting on the sidelines, my friends. The Rebellion is on the ascent, but it needs our help.”

“How can something be on the ascent but also require aid?” another Mon Cal asked skeptically. Luke struggled to remember his name. Dinpar? Ditpak? Something like that. 

“Surely you know that can be true,” Mon Mothma said. “How can one ascend to the surface of the water without the aid of one’s legs kicking behind them?”

“But you are talking of a lifeline,” Ditpak said. “You are asking us to save a drowning person.”

“The Rebellion is  _ not _ drowning,” Luke said emphatically. “We have kept the Empire at bay for months now.”

“Well, that’s not helping us much, is it?” Ditpak shot back. Ackbar silenced him with a webbed hand. 

“We still need our cruisers and other forces in order to keep the Imperials from encroaching on our territories,” Ackbar said. “We have little to spare for a Rebellion.”

Mon Mothma was still looking at Ditpak with barely hidden disdain. “Not ‘helping’ you? Surely you aren’t so naive as to think that the Empire would not be crushing your worlds this very minute if it were not for the Rebels occupying most of their attention. Be realistic: this Rebellion aids us all. You have been benefiting from it without lifting a finger to help, despite what you say.”

“And what about the Death Star?” Luke added. “If the Rebel forces had not destroyed it, it would be threatening worlds just like this one. Whole planets, destroyed in the blink of an eye.” He did not have to add  _ just like mine was _ . “Surely, you’ve benefited from that.”

“For which the Rebellion has our thanks,” Ackbar acknowledged. “Even our largest cruisers would have had a difficult time accomplishing what you have done. But that still does not change the fact that we have little to spare and much to lose.”

“The time for merely protecting your own is over,” Mon Mothma said. “If you do not take a stand now, then when? After the Rebellion is crushed and the Empire has begun to eat away at your forces? How many will you have to spare  _ then _ ?”

“We have not said no yet,” Ackbar pointed out. That was true; the Mon Calamari had been extremely skeptical, but had kept discussions open. Dangling that last bit of hope in front of Luke’s face like bait. 

Mon Mothma made a slight shift in demeanor. “What if I told you that we just reached an agreement with the Bothans?” she asked. 

“The Bothans, you say?” Ackbar said with interest. 

“That’s correct,” Mon Mothma said. “The Bothans and all the resources they can bring to bear. Including the full capabilities of the Bothan Spynet.”

Even Luke was impressed. The Bothan Spynet was a nearly galaxy-spanning network of human and alien agents, rivaling the resources of Imperial Intelligence itself. Through bribery, misinformation, and occasionally good old-fashioned skullduggery, the Spynet had kept Bothawui largely free of Imperial interference since the beginning of the Empire. 

And they had just joined up with the Rebellion? Luke could hardly believe it. 

On second thought, he couldn’t believe it at all. He had just met with some representatives of the more sympathetic Bothan clans, and there had been no such mention of any involvement of the Spynet, merely a vague promise about contributing some additional financial resources.

Mon Mothma was lying. But why take such a gamble?

“We will consider this,” Ackbar said slowly. 

“Consider it, yes,” Mon Mothma echoed, “but for how long? Look at the prince here; you’ve worn the poor kid out with your endless back and forths--”

Luke had not mentioned his previous meetings to her, he realized. How had she known?

“--and we’re running out of time. It’s time to either reel in the fish or cut your lines, my friends. The Rebellion cannot keep bowing to your delays forever. We depart in two hours; I expect your answer by that time.” She turned swiftly and left the chamber, Luke on her heels. 

As soon as they were out of earshot, Luke hissed at her, “Two  _ hours _ ? They’ll never give us a reply in that amount of time.”

“Yes, they will,” Mon Mothma said placidly. “They just needed a good kick in the pants to get there.” Seeing Luke’s expression, she moved to reassure him. “Oh, I’m not blaming you. This wouldn’t have worked without the delicate preparation you had done beforehand--”

“Prep work that you just smashed in about five minutes,” Luke complained. “Why did you even come along on this visit?”

“Because I’ve been yelling at that old fool Ackbar for the better part of twenty years,” she said with a smile. “It’s almost like friendship. I knew he would listen to me.”

“And if he doesn’t? Yesterday you were an Imperial; how do I know that you’re not trying to intentionally sabotage this?”

“ _ Yesterday, _ ” she said, with sudden intensity, “I was a Rebel. As I was the day before that. And the day before  _ that _ . I have been a member of this Rebellion since before you were even  _ born _ . I’ve maintained deep cover for twenty years now, and the things I’ve done…” She looked away for a moment. “The things I’ve done would keep you up at night, assuming your schedule will ever allow you to sleep again." She looked back at him. "So don’t you dare question my commitment to this cause. Don’t you  _ dare. _ ”

Luke wanted to shout at her, wanted to say that of the two of them, at least she still had a home to go back to. But he kept his mouth shut. What good would it have done? They were stuck together for the time being.

* * *

Leia hopped out of the cockpit of the snowspeeder. Here, she had taken the role of gunner while Wedge piloted. He had come up with a truly brilliant idea: rather than using the speeder’s relatively weak lasers, they would use specially-rigged tow cables to trip the AT-ATs heading toward Echo Base. It wouldn’t keep the Imperials away, but it would buy enough time for the base to evacuate, as well as for the evacuation ships to escape while under minimal ground fire.

While heading to the flight bay where the X-wings were kept, Leia overheard some of her squadmates talking. 

“--said it was the  _ Executor _ .”

“Seriously?”

“What’s that?” asked a third.

“It’s Vader’s personal flagship. And it’s  _ here _ .”

Leia nearly stopped in her tracks. Vader was here. 

She knew what she had to do. At her first opportunity, she was going to sneak aboard the Star Destroyer and cut him in half. 

Wait. No. That was a truly idiotic idea. 

Just breathe. Stay calm. 

Get in your X-wing and leave with the squadron. 

Go find Han and leave with the  _ Falcon _ . 

She couldn’t go back to Tatooine. Not yet. There was still work to do. She sighed.  _ I’m sorry, Han _ . 

He knew to leave if she didn’t come back. She followed the rest of her squadron to their ships. 

They had just broken low orbit when the barrage of TIE fighters intercepted them. 

“Evasive!” Wedge yelled and the squadron split from formation. Leia opened herself to the Force just enough to help with her piloting, but hopefully not enough to be noticed by Vader. 

She dove and fired, finding herself easing into the rhythms of the dogfight (if such a thing could ever be described in the same sentence as “easing”). She shot a TIE fighter that was pursuing Wedge and experienced a thrill of pride even as she felt the Imperial pilot’s death through the Force. 

Don’t think about that right now. 

Feel the rhythms of the Force. 

Left. Up. Around. Fire.

Another kill. 

Swing around again. Get the next one in your sights. There. Fire. 

Another kill. 

It was like being in a trance. Every move was perfect. 

Fire again. 

And again.

And again. 

“--d Two, do you copy?”

She snapped back to herself. How long had Wedge been calling her?

“Copy, Red Leader!” she said. 

“We’re about to jump to hyperspace. Do you have your coordinates locked in?”

“Um… just a second. R5?” She had received a new astromech droid when they arrived on Hoth. She didn’t know where Artoo had gone. 

R5 whistled an affirmative. 

“Set, Rogue Leader.”

“Good. On my mark--”

Which was the exact moment that Leia’s ship collided with a TIE fighter. 

It wasn’t a direct collision, thankfully, otherwise she would have been vaporized instantly. One of the wings of the TIE clipped her top port S-foil, sending her spinning in a sickening spiral.    


“R5!” she yelled with what little breath wasn’t being squeezed out of her due to the compensator being overwhelmed by the gravitational forces. “Eject!”

Unlike TIE fighters, X-wing pilots didn’t have suits or helmets that could be used in a vacuum. While it helped with peripheral vision, it made going extravehicular impossible, so the X-wings instead could eject the entire cockpit compartment. As Leia rocketed through space, she realized that her escape pod (for that was what it was now) had been fired in the direction of the Star Destroyer. 

_ Maybe I’ll have to face Vader today after all _ , she thought to herself. 

“Why, hello, princess! Fancy meeting you here.”

“Han!” she called over the comms. “Can you pick me up?”

“Already on it. Just sit tight.”

* * *

Mon Mothma’s gamble did, in fact, pay off. Within the next hour, the Mon Cals had contacted them about providing more than two dozen medium-weight cruisers, with the possibility of half a dozen heavy-weights in the future.

“They have a rivalry with the Bothans going back nearly twenty generations,” she explained to Luke. “Once the Bothans know that they’re in, they’ll sign on as well.”

“Even the Spynet?”

“ _ Especially _ the Spynet,” she said. “Just to keep from being outdone, if anything.”

“So you’re pitting them against one another.”

“Exactly. And now we have an hour to kill before we have to catch our transport. I suggest having a meal and a nap if you can; you’re due to sit next to a minor noble from Sacorria and negotiate a possible rendezvous with one of their representatives in the Corellian Diktat.”

Luke went to go meditate. 

He still felt that large… something that had loomed overhead during his last meditation. Only this time, it was joined by something else…

Something hiding in the depths of his mind. 

He wanted to stop thinking about it. He just wanted to clear his mind and get a little bit rejuvenated before the next leg of his journey. 

And yet it kept calling to him. 

In his mind, he saw himself taking steps towards it. Wading through the water. Reaching out to touch it. 

Random images suddenly spooled through his head:

A tutor he had had when he was young. 

Han in the cockpit of the  _ Falcon _ . 

Winter, sitting in the bedroom that terrible night at the Rhooni’s.

Leia on the Death Star, screaming in fury as she watched Obi-Wan die. Pitching Luke to the floor when he tried to stop her. 

He reached out. 

He was on a world of swampland and water. His ship was parked nearby; he hadn’t crashed. He was supposed to be here, he knew somehow. He was out of breath from heavy exertion. 

A small strange voice kept telling him to focus. 

He saw himself running through the swamp, grabbing vines to swing on, jumping from a branch, tired but exhilarated by the joy of movement, of seeing what his body could do. 

A word floated across his mind.

_ Dagobah. _

He ran faster. He couldn’t make out the exact words that the strange voice was telling him, but he knew that it was some kind of wisdom. It was important and he had to listen to it. He had to focus. 

_ You will go to the Dagobah system… _

Whose voice was this? A different one than the strange small one. 

_ You will go to the Dagobah system, and there you will learn from Yoda… _

The voice sounded so familiar. But he had never heard it before. 

Then Mon Mothma touched him on the shoulder and he woke up.


	4. Evasion

Chewie roared in alarm from the cockpit. “Too many of them!”

“Where’s the rest of the squadron?” Leia asked, finally free of the escape pod and on the  _ Falcon _ . 

“Gone!”

Han ran past her to reach the cockpit. “If we jump now, they’ll be able to follow us.”

“How does that work? I thought you needed a beacon to follow,” Leia asked, following him.

“Unfortunately, we sort of have one: escaping the frost on Hoth damaged one of our fuel exhaust systems and it’s leaking fumes that are easily traced upon entering hyperspace. It would be pretty easy for them to track our vector and determine where we’ve gone.” He hopped into the pilot’s chair. “Chewie, keep evading them, I’ll figure out how to reroute power back to the guns. Maybe we can shake a few off before we run.”

“I thought you just said they could track us,” Leia said.

“Well, it’s either stay or go, and I don’t know about you, but this isn’t the sort of place I’d like to have a vacation right now,” Han said through gritted teeth. “We’ll just to a separate location and then make our way to the base. Get to the aft gun turret, okay?”

Leia headed down the corridor towards the turret. Once in the firing seat, she adjusted her headset to a higher volume than normal. She couldn’t afford to zone out again like she did in her X-wing. Not again, anyway. 

She tried to stay focused. The lullaby of combat still called to her, though. 

It was hard to tune out when all she was hearing from Han and Chewie’s side of the comms were curses in at least three languages. She turned the volume down again.

Swivel. Aim. Kill. 

Over and over. 

And yet more TIEs kept coming. 

How many of these things could a Star Destroyer  _ hold _ ?

At long last, the  _ Falcon  _ entered hyperspace. She ran back to the cockpit. 

“We’re lucky they weren’t employing an interdictor field,” Han said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten out of there at all.”

“Where are we going?” Leia asked. 

“Just a short jump, towards Eriadu. I figure we can come out there and redirect towards somewhere that we can repair that leak. With any luck, they won’t follow us more than a single jump.”

“With even better luck, they won’t follow us at all,” Leia said. 

“I thought Jedi weren’t supposed to believe in luck.”

“I’m taking what I can get right now, okay?”

* * *

Three jumps later, it was clear that luck was not on their side.

The  _ Executor _ was still intent on following them, showing up almost on top of them within minutes of the  _ Falcon _ exiting hyperspace. By the second jump, Leia was joining in on the cursing. By the third jump, she was ready to climb out of the ship with her lightsaber and take on the whole Star Destroyer single-handedly. 

“I’m amazed you still have that with you, considering what happened to your ship,” Han said, in the middle of a new batch of astronavigation calculations. 

Leia was still grim. “I take it everywhere I go.”

“I’m not complaining. Hey, that thing was kind of fun to use, by the way.” 

“I’m not making you one of your own, Han.”

“Fine, fine.” He looked up from his calculations. “Hey, so I have an incredibly risky idea, but I’m going to need some time to put it together. Can you go back down to the guns and hold them off for another few minutes?”

“How many minutes?” asked Leia.

“No more than ten.”

That was practically a lifetime in combat. “The fact that  _ you’re _ saying it’s risky has me feeling extremely nervous,” Leia admitted.

“We’ll have Threepio calculate the odds the next time we see him, okay? Now go!”

Leia was back in the gun turret. Worn out, frazzled, exhausted, and on the edge of panic, she didn’t even bother with focus. She needed every edge she could get.

The Force was there, awaiting her commands.

Turn, aim, kill.

Over and over.

This next one was difficult. He wouldn’t cooperate, wouldn’t stay still when he needed to stay still. 

Stop. 

Stop moving. 

_ Stop moving! _

The TIE fighter’s engines cut out and it floated in space, powerless, until Leia’s lasers found their mark and shredded it into plasma. 

No time to think about that. Line up the next one. Aim. Kill. 

Over and over. 

Soon she was hitting them almost as fast as the Star Destroyer could launch them. 

She could be faster, though. 

With the Force, she could be so much faster.

She could shred through all of the fighters, she knew, and then she would be able to turn her guns on the ship itself. Pick the Star Destroyer apart, piece by piece.

Her fingers flexed over the trigger. She couldn’t believe that Vader had survived the destruction of the Death Star. And yet, somehow, he had. 

He wouldn’t escape this one. 

She could finally avenge Ben and all the countless other Jedi that Vader had killed.

Dark Side be damned. 

Suddenly, her guns cut out. 

“What happened?” she yelled into the comms.

“I  _ just said _ ,” Han said irritably. “I’m cutting out all non-essentials to pull this trick off. That includes guns.”

“Like hell it does!” Leia snarled. “They’re still coming!”

“And we’re  _ going _ !”

The view outside her turret turned the familiar stripes of dark and light as the ship went to hyperspace. 

Leia stormed to the bridge. “I was doing just fine until you turned off the guns!”

Han turned and looked at her, confused. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I was taking care of the ships!”

“Right, but then I finished what I had to do--”

“But I  _ had _ them!”

“Have you forgotten why I asked you to man the guns in the first place?” Han asked in irritated bewilderment. Before she could answer, he held up a hand. “Hold on to something.”

Then the  _ Falcon  _ gave a sickening lurch and reverted back to normal space. 

In the middle of an asteroid field. 

“Are you  _ insane? _ ” Leia screamed as they narrowly avoided being crushed between two large asteroids. 

“Chewie, give me controls!” Han ordered. And to Leia: “And stop screaming in my ear! I told you this was a risky move.”

Something collided with the ship and Leia heard pipes burst in the rear of the ship. “Go see what that was!” Han told her.

A foul-smelling fume had been expelled into the berth. Leia wrapped a cloth over her nose and mouth and did her best to seal off the burst pipe. 

The fumes had filled the room quickly, though. Her vision blurred, and she found herself on her knees. 

_ The way the air always smells of flowers,  _ he said. _   
_

_...and the soft sound of the distant waterfalls,  _ she finished.  _ I had never seen a waterfall before. _

A world of shining palaces. 

_ Did you always dream of politics? _

A world of endless fields.

_ I’m not sure that I was old enough. I’m not sure I was ready. _

Deep oceans, full of secrets. 

_ I love the water… _

_ I do too. I guess it comes from growing up on a desert planet… _

They sounded so familiar. 

“Leia!”

She stirred back to consciousness. Han and Chewie had carried her into the corridor. The cleaner air had revived her. 

“Did they follow us?” she murmured. 

“No,” Han said, sitting beside her on the floor of the corridor. “The risky move paid off. We’re going to be okay. Assuming you haven’t asphyxiated in the meantime.”

“Where are we?”

“Just off the Enarc Run. Not too far from a few planets we could hide out on. And hey, I hear one of them is pretty fancy.” He squeezed her hand. “Feel like a brief vacation?”

“Shouldn’t we meet up with the fleet?”

Han looked a little pained. “I wish we could, but the old girl took a beating during that last jump and the hyperdrive is shot. First rule of astronavigation: don’t plot your course too close to any large planetary bodies, otherwise you’ll be dragged out of hyperspace in a bad way.”

“And that was your trick?”

“At least we didn’t crash full-on into anything.”

“Except an asteroid,” she pointed out. 

“That doesn’t count!”

They bickered about it until Chewie, grumbling, returned to the cockpit. This seemed to be the cue that Han was waiting for, because his face suddenly turned serious. “Hey,” he asked. “Can we talk about what happened?”

“What do you mean?” Leia knew, but… don’t think about that right now, she told herself.

“Your freakout during the jumps. You’re usually a good partner during combat, but this time you zoned out and seemed to have forgotten what we were trying to do in the first place. You were… honestly, I haven’t seen you act this scary since...” He hesitated.

“...since Ben died,” she finished. “Knowing that Vader’s still out there. Knowing he was  _ chasing _ us. It was… it’s like I can’t focus on anything but how to fight back.”

“Are you sure it’s just Vader?”

Leia didn’t answer. 

Han tried again. “I’m not saying that I… well, that I  _ ever _ know what’s going on inside your head, but  _ something _ happened when we went to rescue Carver. But you haven’t talked about it. You’ve gone to…” he smiled in spite of himself “...some fairly impressive lengths to distract yourself from it.”

“I promise I’ll be more focused in the future,” Leia said. “I won’t let myself get sidetracked like that again.”

“Leia, I’m not asking you as your fellow  _ combatant. _ I’m asking you as your  _ friend. _ There’s something you’re not dealing with and it’s obviously messing you up inside.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to  _ think _ about it right now.” Leia’s face darkened. “So just drop it, okay? It’s none of your business.”

Han held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, fine. Just… I’m here, okay? If you need to talk to someone about it. No judgment, I swear.”

Chewie called from the cockpit. “Landing soon.”

“On my way,” Han called back. He looked at Leia. “No combat for awhile. I think that will help.” He got up and headed to the cockpit.

Leia sat by herself with her head in her hands. 

Just breathe, she told herself. 

* * *

It was beautiful.

Leia could barely believe her eyes. The Force was so  _ vibrant _ here. Everything was so vibrant, actually. The buildings here practically shone with their own inner light, they reflected the sunlight so clearly.

Theed, Naboo’s capital, was a paradise, in Leia’s opinion. Full of rivers, fountains, and waterfalls, it was impossible not to smell the water in the air. Unlike Yavin IV, which had a jungle climate that was almost like swimming through warm soup, the air here seemed cleaner and crisper. 

As the wandered the city blocks, Leia was driven to near distraction by every plant or water feature. 

“Whoa there, princess, you’re going to wander into traffic,” Han said, taking her hand. 

Leia laughed and rushed to run her hands along a fragrant-smelling bush of purple flowers. 

One wall of an ornate building (“probably some government building, from the looks of it,” Han said) contained an elaborate fresco that covered nearly the entire wall. 

“What is it?” Leia asked, moving closer to it. The fresco was a mixture of paint, embedded stones, and shapes carved out of the wall itself. Numerous figures populated its expanse: some were human, some were long-eared aliens.  

The central figure, however, was what drew the eye most. 

A young woman, barely older than Leia herself. Most of the fresco’s precious stones were used to make parts of her elaborate attire: bright robes of red and intricate jeweled stones in the shape of flowers dotting her hair.

“Looks like a memorial of some kind,” Han said. “Hang on, there’s a plaque here:  _ Martyrs of the Old Republic _ . Except for the woman in the center, it seems like the rest are humans and Gungans who died in some battle here twenty or thirty years ago.”

Leia touched the hem of the woman’s robes. “What about her?”

Han kept reading the plaque. “Says here her name is Padme Amidala Naberrie… a senator who died twenty years ago. Doesn’t say how, though. I’m reading here that she was some kind of queen… but was elected to the position? I don’t really know how politics here work.” He shrugged, then gave the fresco another look. 

“She’s pretty,” Leia said. “But also looks… kind of sad. Sorrowful.”

“Well, it  _ is _ a memorial,” Han pointed out. “You know… she kind of looks like you. That same regal thing you have going on.”

Leia laughed. “Flatterer.”

“Hey, I’ve always said you were a princess.”

“I’m a gross desert rat,” she snarked. She frowned at the woman in the fresco. Something about her  _ did _ look familiar. No… it was the name. Padme. 

Something Luke had said to her once.

“So you were adopted?” she asked over another bottle of whiskey. It was the night before Luke was due to leave Hoth and head out on his mission to drum up support for the Rebellion (“a different sort of mission of mercy,” he had sighed). 

“It’s a thing on Alderaan,” he said. “But I didn’t know until I was a teenager.”

“I never knew my parents either,” she said. “They died before I was born.” 

“My mother did too.”

“I can’t believe Ben never mentioned that he had a kid.”

“Maybe he was embarrassed? Jedi weren’t supposed to do that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, and it’s not like he was going to talk about extramarital sex to a 14 year old,” she said, with a brief laugh. She passed him the bottle. “So what about your mother? Who was she?”

“I don’t know a lot,” Luke admitted, taking a sip. “By the time I found out I was adopted, I was already keeping so many secrets that my father--my adopted one, I mean-- and I barely had any real conversations anymore. Everything was subtext. But I did get a name. She was a Naboo senator, Padme Amidala.”

“And she hooked up with a Jedi. Scandalous.”

Luke smiled. “Hey, if it weren’t for scandalous Jedi, neither of us would be here.”

“Fair.” She took the bottle back.

“Hey… did you mean it? About taking me on as an apprentice some day?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Yeah. I did. Maybe not at the time, but now? It would be silly not to pass along what I’ve learned. I don’t want to be the last Jedi.” She frowned. “Assuming I can ever call myself a true Jedi.”

“Maybe there are more out there. Ben was able to hide for years; maybe there are others who did the same.”

“Not sure where I’d find them, though,” she said. “I mean, if the Empire couldn’t find them, how am I going to?”

“You seem to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time.”

“That’s the Force for you. Either the timing is amazing or the timing is the absolute worst.”

Back on Naboo, Leia continued frowning at the fresco. Luke’s mother. A martyr. And she’d been here, in plain sight, all the time. 

Leia wished Luke was here to see this. Maybe he’d be able to come here some day. 

“Hey,” said Han. “I’m getting hungry. Let’s go find somewhere to eat.”

The image of Padme’s sorrow stayed with Leia for the rest of the day. 


	5. Dagobah

“Apparently one of us has experienced a head injury,” Mon Mothma said, “because what you just said made no sense at all.”

“You’re saying that Echo Base was evacuated and our missions have been cut short. So I’m leaving,” Luke said, trying to keep calm. “You do what you want. Go rejoin the Rebellion, go back to Chandrila, whatever. I don’t care. But there’s something I have to go do. Alone.”

“It’s completely foolish to just go off on your own without telling anyone.”

“I’m telling  _ you _ , aren’t I?”

“What if Kilo Base has to be evacuated as well? Are you going to keep all of your secure codes in your head while you’re gone?”

“I’ll manage. It’s not like I’m hard to find.”

“That had better not be true,” Mon Mothma said darkly, “seeing as the Empire would likely find you before the Rebellion does.”

“It won’t take long. I’ll check in on Bespin when I’m free.”

“Assuming I remember him correctly, Willard will not be pleased about this,” she said.

“I’m sure you can handle him,” Luke snarked. 

Mon Mothma sighed. “And here I thought you were mature for your age. It turns out you’re still a brat.”

“You should have heard the stories my father would tell about me when he thought I wasn’t listening.”

“I did hear them.”

Luke blinked in surprise before he remembered. “Of course. You knew him through the Senate.”

“And through the Rebellion. He was another founding member.” She sighed again, then gave Luke a stern look. “You have a lot to live up to, young man.”

Luke flushed red. “I’ll live up to it later. Right now, I need to find a ship.”

* * *

From space, Dagobah looked miserable enough.

On the ground, it was like a depressed version of Yavin. The swamplands managed to be both muggy  _ and _ chilly, the ground looked solid but swallowed up almost the entirety of his ship’s landing gear. Strange screeches hung in the air like the fog. 

He wasn’t sure how he decided where to land. His ship seemed to fly itself. Maybe it was the Force guiding his hands? He hoped so; otherwise this was going to be a long trip. 

How else would you find a single person on the surface of a planet?

He didn’t have Leia’s skill with sensing others through the Force, but even he could sense the sheer power of the life on Dagobah. The Force seemed to permeate everything around him. 

This was definitely the place he had seen in his mind. 

He followed his memories. Through the swamp, over logs, under branches, around deep pools of murky water. He was considerably more clumsy than in his vision, but the route was the same, taking him closer and closer to the place that he sought. 

A cave in the deep woods. 

Something was inside. Something he needed to see. 

He took a deep breath and approached. 

“What brings you here?”

A strange small voice. It took Luke a second of searching before he found its source: a type of alien he had never seen before, with green skin and large ears, wearing a simple brown robe and carrying a walking stick. 

“Are you… are you Yoda?” Luke asked. His voice stuck in his throat. 

“Yoda, I am,” the stranger replied. He gave Luke a wary look, as if the young man wasn’t quite what he had been waiting for. 

“I’ve come to train with you. To be a Jedi.”

“Why?” Yoda asked. 

“Because I know I’m strong in the Force. Because the Jedi were guardians of peace in the galaxy. Because they are almost extinct… or at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Why more Jedi does the galaxy need?”

“What do you mean? Aren’t you a Jedi Master? Wouldn’t you want there to be more Jedi?”

“Yes, but  _ why _ ?” Yoda pressed. 

“Because… because the galaxy needs  _ hope. _ Something to believe in. Something to bring balance to the Force.” Luke shifted uncomfortably. This wasn’t what he was expecting. “Besides… my father was a Jedi. I want to take up that mantle.”

Yoda was silent for a time. “A Jedi like your father… your goal is this?”

“Yes.”

“And about this place you were told? About me?”

“Yes. I had… a vision of myself here. Of myself training. And a voice telling me to come here.”

Yoda exhaled a small sigh. Luke couldn’t read his facial expression well yet, but he seemed troubled. “Experimented with the Force already, have you?”

Luke shifted uncomfortably. “A little. Not really.”

“And yet here you are. Found this cave, you did.”

“From my vision.”

“And in this vision, entered the cave you did?”

“No.”

“Then not today will you venture within it.” He sighed again. “Come. To my home.” Walking surprisingly briskly, Yoda headed deeper into the swamp. Luke followed. 

Yoda’s dwelling was not built for human-sized visitors, which meant that Luke had to get down almost on his knees in order to enter. By sitting on the floor, his head was just barely lower than the ceiling. 

“I’m, uh, I’m Luke Organa,” he said, settling in. “From Alderaan.”

“Ah,” said Yoda, though he didn’t sound surprised. “A prince, are you?”

“Yes. But my birth father was a Jedi Knight.”

“Yes, yes. A Jedi he was.” He handed Luke an earthenware mug. “Drink this. Tea, it is.”

Though nothing like the type he had been raised on, the tea had an intense smoky flavor that reminded him of home all the same. 

“So will you train me?” he asked after a few sips. 

Yoda looked at him with a strange expression. After a moment, Luke realized that it was sadness. 

“No,” Yoda said. “Train you I will not.”

“Are you serious?” Luke said, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling in surprise. “I came all this way to find you, possibly the last Jedi Master, and you won’t train me?”

“Yes,” Yoda said. “Too old, you are. Too set in your ways.”

“I know so little about the Force, how could I be ‘too set in my ways’?”

“Learned much control over yourself, you have. Promising, yes, but also dangerous. Too many emotions clouding your judgment. Too focused on what  _ should _ be done, instead of what  _ is _ .”

“I promise, I won’t let you down. I’m here to learn, I swear it,” Luke pleaded. 

“Ah, so you say. Much danger is in you, young Organa. Too much of your life spent hearing yes, instead of handling no. Entitled, you are,” Yoda accused him. 

“I know, but I’ve worked to try and overcome that. I can’t be blamed for how I was raised.”

“Blame? Ha!” Yoda said with a gruff laugh. “Avoiding blame, your whole life has been. A Jedi seeks not to avoid these things, but to accept them.”

“Please,” Luke said. “Please train me. I…” he bit his lip. “I don’t know where else to go.”

Yoda was silent for a long time. Then said, “Wait outside. Think on this, I must.”

Luke went out and sat on a log outside the house. He considered bringing his tea with him, but figured that he needed every appearance of a disciplined student he could get. 

Behind the noises of the swampland, he heard Yoda’s voice, softly. Luke crept slightly closer to the window to listen. 

“Waiting for the other one, I was,” Yoda said sadly. 

Were they talking about Leia?

Was his vision meant for her?

No, it was definitely him in his vision. He was supposed to be here, he knew it.

“She will come,” a second voice said softly, as if from a long distance away. “But she brings her own troubles as well, I fear.”

“Much darkness in him, I sense,” Yoda said.

“There are no perfect students, just as there are no perfect teachers. You taught me that, when his father became my Padawan.”

“Too like his father, I fear. Went straight to the cave, he did.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that he wouldn’t benefit from training,” the other voice said. 

“More control, would training give? Or more power? Risks, there are.”

“There are always risks.””

“If trained he was, another renegade like Vader would he become?”

A brief silence. Then the other voice said, “We failed Vader. All of us. We should have seen the signs coming and done something instead of driving him away.”

Luke’s blood began to boil. Were they honestly comparing him to that monster Vader? 

How dare they. 

No. Stop. Breathe. 

Stay calm. 

Getting angry won’t help. 

He tried to look in the window. He could see a bluish glow, but little else from his current position. 

Luke remembered there being another window on the other side of the small house. He stood back up to walk to the other side--

\--and nearly tripped over Yoda, who had just come out of the door. 

“I’m sorry!” Luke cried, jumping back. 

“Not injured, am I,” Yoda said without alarm. “Thought on what you have said, have I. Train you… I shall.”

“Thank you!” Luke said, elated. 

“But,” Yoda warned. “Time it will take. Impatience you must put behind you. The Rebellion? Wait, it must. Your friends? Wait, they must.”

Luke nodded. But the reality of what he was agreeing to nagged at him slightly, reminding him that he didn’t understand the full implications yet. 

“Afraid, are you?” Yoda asked. 

“Not afraid,” Luke said. “But worried.”

“Such emotions must be put out of your mind. As with all emotions. Your judgment, they cloud.”

“ _ All  _ emotions?”

“Yes.”

“Even compassion?”

“Yes.”

“Even  _ love _ ?”

“ _ Especially _ love,” Yoda stressed. “Some of the worst acts in the galaxy, made by love they have.”

Luke frowned. “That’s insane.”

“Is it?” Yoda said, almost amused. 

“I’m not a droid.”

“Saying that these emotions should not exist, I am not. Saying that they should not  _ control _ your actions, I am.”

“I don’t see what the difference is. Obviously I’m the one making my decisions, but emotions aren’t separate from that. They’re part of me. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take responsibility for those actions, but I can’t say that my emotions don’t play a part.”

“And that, young Organa, is the discipline that a Jedi must learn.”

“I don’t see why the prohibition can’t just be on negative emotions.”

“Tell me,” said Yoda, “fight the Empire, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Fear the Empire, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Hate them?”

“...maybe. Okay, yes. But I  _ know _ that’s a dark emotion.”

“And why hate them, do you? Harmed you, did they?”

“Yes.”

“Harmed your friends?”

“Yes.”

“It is why you hate them, then?

“Yes. They destroyed my world.”

“Loved your family, did you? Your friends?”

“Yes.”

“Had you not, would you hate the Empire?”

“I guess not as much.”

Yoda grew solemn. “A powerful emotion, love is. But it can also lead to hate, and hate can lead to suffering and the Dark Side.”

“So Jedi are just supposed to shove all that to one side?” He couldn’t see Leia doing that.

Yoda sighed. “A sacrifice, it is. Argue with that fact I do not. To become one with the Force, sacrifices must be made. Control over emotions. No attachments. Obedience to the Jedi tradition. A normal life it is not.” He gave Luke a closer look. “Not too late to leave, it is.”

“I won’t always agree with you,” Luke warned. 

“Agree you may not,” Yoda agreed. “But listen you must.”

Luke thought about it for awhile. “Who were you talking to when I was outside?”

Yoda gave a small smile. “Listen, you did? Assumed, I should have.” He looked off into the middle distance. “When one with the Force some Jedi become, they leave behind ghosts. Ghosts that can be spoken to.”

“You were talking to a  _ ghost _ ?”

“Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

Luke was startled. “My father?”

Yoda looked equally startled. “Your what?” he asked. Then shook his head and laughed, briefly. “No, no, young Organa. Your father Obi-Wan was not.”

“Wait, what?”

“A Jedi your father was, but a different one.”

“Who was he?”

Yoda looked suddenly stern. “A long and painful history, the Jedi Order has. Talk of him I will not. Not yet.”

Luke became frustrated. “Why not?”

“Because of  _ this. _ Your focus is too much on other things instead of what is here and now. At some point, explain I will. But not yet. Patience, you must learn.”

Luke thought it was a fairly cruel first lesson, but did not press any further. 

“Now,” Yoda said. “Time to rest, it is. Begin tomorrow, we will.”

He went inside and shut the door, leaving Luke outside in the dimming light of the swamp. 

Luke sighed. Where was he going to sleep? He started trudging back towards his ship, but found his steps taking him towards the cave he had seen before. Maybe he could sleep in there. 

The closer he got to it, however, the more he felt fear rising in his chest. 

Something was wrong in there. 

He got nearly to the entrance of the cave before the horror overtook him and his ran to his ship for the night.

It was only then that he remembered what Yoda and Obi-Wan had said about him. 

_ Too like his father. Went straight to the cave, he did. _

Who  _ was _ his father?

And why was Yoda so worried that Luke would turn out like him?

Or worse, like Vader?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm definitely too hard on Yoda here: telling someone that if they didn't love their family they wouldn't be so mad is going a little further than his stance in the films. On the other hand, telling Luke not to go rescue his friends from mortal peril on Bespin is sort of a dick move. 
> 
> Regardless, the conclusion you should take away from this is: I don't always use my powers for good and I'm still salty after watching this video by Pop Culture Detective about toxic masculinity in the Jedi Order: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUPD1w78D5I. 
> 
> But hey, at least Luke's Epic Research Fail from Book 1 has finally been cleared up!


	6. Family

“I figure we can splurge on this one,” Leia said. “I still have credits left from Tatooine and it’s not like I’ve had many opportunities to spend them since joining up.”

“No complaints here,” Han said, but gave a low whistle at the menu all the same. “Wow.”

“It smelled amazing from outside; I couldn’t resist,” Leia said with a smile. “Besides, we can’t bill Luke for  _ everything _ .”

They were briefly interrupted by the waitress coming by and taking their orders. Leia admittedly felt a little underdressed; she had used the shower on the  _ Falcon  _ before they set out, but she wondered if she smelled of exhaust all the same. 

“Are you sure Chewie didn’t want to join us?” she asked.

“If there’s anyone out there as protective of the  _ Falcon _ as I am, it’s him,” Han said. “So he’s busy scaring the life out of every potential mechanic who could fix the hyperdrive and every other thing that our most recent trip broke on the old girl.”

“And in exchange, you get to have a day frolicking around Theed.” 

“I’ll admit that I might get hell from him for it later on, but I think the uninterrupted Leia time is worth it,” he said. “Still, I should probably head back there after we’re done eating. I’m not sure how many people around here speak Shyriiwook.”

“I may wander around the city a little more,” Leia said. “Get as much time out of doors as I can before we have to leave.”

“So about that,” Han said. “We still haven’t talked about where we’re going after this.”

Leia sighed. “Because I’m still not sure where to go. Before, I was hellbent on going back to Tatooine, but for some reason, the longer I’m here the more I want to go back to the fleet. I started something on Tatooine that needs finishing, but I think the…” she looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “...the Alliance might need me more.” She looked back at Han. “But I don’t know what that means for you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“You’ve been sticking around ever since Yavin. And I don’t think it’s because you’re still waiting to get paid. Every day you’re there, you’re losing money, I bet.”

“You’re not wrong,” he said, but still seemed to be holding something back. 

“What is it?”

“I thought it would be obvious,” Han said, a little sadly. “I’m here because of you.”

Leia was quiet for awhile. “I mean… yes, it’s obvious. But I think that I’ve been avoiding talking about it because I’m kind of uncomfortable with the idea.”

“Uncomfortable?”

“Because you’re making this sacrifice that I never asked for. I feel guilty.”

“Well, you don’t have to.”

“You’re also making this choice for Chewie, too. And it’s obvious he’s not okay with it. And I think…” She struggled to find the right words. “You’ve been partners for so long. And I think you shouldn’t be choosing me over him.”

“So you’re saying I should go?”

“I…” she faltered. “I don’t know.”

“Leia…”

She shut her eyes. “Yes. I’m saying you should go.”

Their meals arrived and they ate in silence. The food was as incredible as it smelled, but she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy it. Finally, she set down her fork. “I’m sorry.”

Han was trying to act nonchalant, but seemed to be failing. “You had a point. I was never in this for your revolution. I was in it for you, princess.”

“But Chewie wasn’t in this for either of those things.”

“Our dynamic is… complicated,” Han admitted. “I’d rather not go into it, frankly. It’s just… sometimes we end up places that one of us doesn’t want to be, and we deal with it. While your concern is sweet, my partnership with Chewie is, to be honest, none of your business.”

“I don’t want this to feel like I’m dumping you again,” she murmured. 

“You don’t get a say in how I end up feeling. But maybe, someday, we’ll reconnect when you’re back on Tatooine and go through this whole thing all over again.” That last sentence came out with a touch of bitterness. Leia flushed with embarrassment. 

“Look, I have some things I need to work on back at the Falcon,” Han said, standing. “I’ll see you later.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and left. 

Leia stared at her half-empty plate and tried to keep from crying. 

“Excuse me,” said a middle-aged woman standing next to her. “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing. Did I hear correctly that your name is Leia?”

“Yes,” she said numbly. She assumed that the woman had overheard the rest of the conversation too. 

“I have a granddaughter by that name. It’s an old name in my family here on Naboo. And yet you don’t seem to be from around here.”

“I’m from Tatooine,” she said. Something seemed to call for a more proper introduction, so she held out her hand. “Leia Skywalker.” She realized only a second too late that if there were any Imperials around, she had just given herself away as their number-one enemy. 

The woman’s face froze for a moment. At first Leia’s heart jumped at the possibility that she was talking to someone who would turn her in, but through the Force, she heard a word all but shouted in the woman’s mind.

_ Him. _

“My name is Sola,” the woman said, recovering and taking Leia’s hand. “Shall we go for a walk? It seems as though you have had a rough day. Some fresh air will do you good.”

Leia nodded. There seemed to be something else that the woman wanted to talk about. Sola talked with the waitress and, Leia noticed, covered Leia’s bill as well as her own. 

When they were outside, it was a while before Sola spoke. She seemed to be wrestling with how to best begin. 

“My sister…” Sola finally began, “...lived off-world, but would come home to visit once in awhile. I remember, there was one visit where she stayed with me for a few days, her and a young man. I remember being so glad; she never brought boys home with her, and this one was so pretty, though he looked like he needed at least five drinks and a strong sedative in order to relax. But the way he looked at my sister… it was obvious they were in love. Years later, she finally told me: during that visit, they were wed in secret, and that she was now pregnant. But…” and here her eyes welled up with tears, “but before that could happen, she died. So did her husband. And his name,” she said, looking at Leia, “was Anakin Skywalker.”

“What?” Leia breathed. “I’m…”

“You are my niece.” Sola said with a sad smile. “It would be just like her to give you that name. It was the name of her favorite aunt. Come, this way.”

Leia knew before they reached it what Sola was about to show her. 

The fresco. 

“You look very like her,” Sola said. “Your eyes and the way you carry yourself in particular.” She looked up at the image of Padme. “It’s a shame they couldn’t capture her smile. I suppose that wouldn’t have been appropriate under the circumstances, but when she smiled she could light up a room.”

Leia was still struggling to take it all in. Her mother was Padme Amidala. 

Which meant that Luke was her brother. 

Half-brother, she supposed. 

Anakin and Ben were in love with the same woman? 

How had that happened? And what had it done to their relationship?

“Did she ever mention anyone named Obi-Wan?” Leia asked. 

Sola shook her head. “Not that I can recall. He never came here, to my knowledge. Though the name sounds familiar.”

“Can you tell me more about her?” Leia asked. 

Sola smiled. “I can try. I’m still reeling myself, to be honest. To discover that her child survived, and to finally meet you… as you can probably imagine, I am experiencing quite a number of emotions right now.”

So was Leia. Staring at Padme’s image, Leia flung her thoughts out through the Force. She had to tell him. 

_ Luke! _

No answer came, just an echo through the Force like the tide coming in.

How did she know about tides anyway?

The wave grew taller and taller, and soon she was swept away. 

* * *

Leia dreamed of a world on fire.

“You turned her against me,” she heard herself saying. 

“You have done that yourself.” Ben. It was Ben, somehow. But younger. 

And she had never been so angry with him in her life. 

Ben had hurt her, more deeply than she had ever felt. The betrayal was complete and like a saber wound to her heart. It was like losing Han and failing her squadmates and mourning Tank all wrapped up into one horrible feeling. And she needed to  _ do something _ to fix it.

This wasn’t her. This was someone else. Someone familiar. 

Someone wielding the Dark Side as easily as she held the lightsaber in her hand. 

She was going to kill Ben. He would fight back, of course, but she knew she was stronger. She knew she could do it. He would die and then she would take Padme somewhere safe, somewhere where she could explain why she was doing what she was doing. 

Somewhere where she could make Padme see that everything was going to be okay. 

Can’t think about Padme now. Have to think about Ben now. 

At some point, the talking stopped and the killing began. 

She had fought against the Dark Side for so long. Dabbling in it, surprising herself by using it on instinct. Defying Ben, over and over. Keeping her secrets from everyone, even those she was closest to. Even Padme.

But now, having opened herself to it completely, she knew she had made the right choice. She could move exactly where she needed to move. She could fight more fluidly and with more force than she had ever been able to do before.

Before, she had been so weak. So afraid. So  _ ignorant _ . 

But now she wasn’t afraid of anything. Even death couldn’t touch her. 

But she would make sure it touched Ben today. She probably could have just reached out and snapped his neck. It would have been easy, but not as satisfying. She wanted to carve him up into pieces and watch him die. 

She could see it all in her mind as clearly as she could see Ben in front of her. 

How dare he. How dare he hurt her like this. 

Her lightsaber seemed to move almost of its own volition. Her old instincts were strong, but now there was so much  _ power _ behind them. 

The Jedi were nothing but fools, clinging to old ways at the expense of free will. She had obeyed and obeyed and obeyed and been a perfect little soldier for them until there was almost nothing of her left. Staying with the Order would have eaten her alive. 

So she had left. And Ben had stayed. 

Nothing left of Ben but an empty husk full of Jedi dogma, she thought. Killing him would be no more consequential than smashing a datapad. 

And then everything would be all right again. Better, even. The Jedi were gone, Padme was here, and the galaxy would finally, at last, be at peace. There would finally be order. No more pointless war. No more blind obedience. The galaxy would be shaped as she saw fit. 

All she had to do was finish this last task. 

She heard herself screaming at Ben. He stood above her on the embankment. 

Ben was cautioning her about something. It didn’t matter. Nothing about him mattered.

He had always underestimated her. Well, he was about to learn his error. She leaped. 

Ben’s saber came towards her faster than expected.

And then stopped. 

Ben stood before her. He looked older now, just as she remembered him. Grey hair. Desert robes.

He deactivated his lightsaber. 

_ Wait… _

This was something different. 

“If you strike me down,” Ben said, “I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.”

She smiled. That old fool.

_ Wait. No! _

Leia heard herself scream as she cut Ben in half.

* * *

She awoke with a cry.

Sola was beside her. “You’re alright, you’re alright,” she said, soothing her. “You must have passed out from the heat.”

Leia sat up. She felt exhausted. It might have been the heat; the midday sun was surprisingly hot compared to earlier in the day. But what she had experienced… that was something else. 

Don’t think about it right now. 

But think about it later. Don’t forget what you saw. 

Sola helped her to her feet. “Is there somewhere you’re staying?”

“At my ship,” Leia said. She still felt woozy. “I know the way.”

“Come to my house, then,” Sola said. “I can show you some pictures of your mother when she was younger. Our father was a holoimage fiend,” she said with a smile. 

Leia shook her head. “No, I should get back. If I don’t, my friends will worry.”

“Like that young man you were with?”

Leia nodded. 

“Did something go wrong between you?”

“Yes. He was sacrificing his livelihood to stay with me… but he never asked how I felt about it.”

Sola gave her a sympathetic squeeze on the arm. “That sounds very difficult.”

“I guess I hurt him too. We both hurt each other without meaning to.”

“That’s often the way when communication fails,” Sola said. She took Leia by the arm and led her away. “I can send a messenger to your ship if you would like to stay with my family tonight. Perhaps some time apart will help with the pain.”

Leia nodded and sighed. At least it would give Han some practice in not having her around. And might give her some practice too.  

As they walked, something occurred to Leia. If Sola knew that Padme was pregnant right before she died… she probably would have known if Padme had been pregnant at any other point. She and Luke couldn't be half-siblings.

So either Luke was wrong about who his mother was, Sola was wrong about who Leia was, or…

Or Luke was wrong about who his father was.


	7. Interlude: Fire

Vader dreamed of a world on fire every time he closed his eyes. 

He dreamed about fighting Obi-Wan. About all of the ways that he could have changed what happened. About all the ways he could have ended it differently. 

Finally killing him should have ended it, but it continued playing out in his head, over and over. 

Some part of him, something he hadn’t scoured clean with the Dark Side, still cared about this. He hated it. 

But sometimes hate wasn’t enough. 

He tried to focus, but lately he had become distracted. His meditations were disrupted by these intrusive thoughts. 

He had a daughter.

And every time that knowledge surfaced, his ruined face did something that horrified even him: beneath his mask, Darth Vader  _ smiled. _

This was a distraction he did not need. Not with the Rebellion so close to its ultimate destruction. Not with the Emperor’s new demands. 

There was a hiss as the door to his meditation chamber opened. He slowly swiveled his chair around. 

Some anonymous captain. He could barely keep track of their names anymore. No one of importance. 

“Lord Vader, we have received confirmation from Imperial Intelligence: a Rebel cell has been operating out of Bespin for some time now. It is primarily used as a point of contact for Rebel agents returning from covert operations.”

“Continue monitoring activities there,” Vader said. “Intercept any suspected agents who arrive before they are able to make contact.”

“Yes, Lord Vader.”

“Now go.”

_ Luke! _

The girl. 

She was in his head. In his  _ memories _ . 

This shouldn’t be possible. She was seeing him. Seeing his fight with Obi-Wan. Seeing his dreams. Seeing too much. 

But at the same time… he realized that he could see  _ her _ . 

Flashes of emotion: sadness, regret, fear, surprise. 

Amazement at a city surrounded by water. 

Naboo. She was on Naboo.  One of the few places in the galaxy he would never go. 

Other images: violence. Killing. And beneath it all, a well of growing darkness beginning to rise within her. 

She could be turned. 

She  _ would _ be turned. 

_ Luke! _

Another dizzying array of thoughts. Culminating in one word:

_ Brother. _

She had a twin brother. The boy. 

Of course it was the boy. 

She receded from his mind. Vader was left alone with his thoughts.

And his plans.

He would trap both of them. Soon. 

Both of his children.


	8. Cave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: since we're dealing with Jedi Mind Tricks this chapter, there are going to be some issues with consent and manipulation.

This should really not be possible. 

He was  _ upside down _ . 

No, wait, that wasn’t the impossible part.

He was  _ moving things with his mind. _

As awful as the swamp was, as maddeningly obtuse as his teacher was, Luke couldn’t deny that this part was incredible. 

“Train the body as well as the mind, a Jedi must,” Yoda had said, before making Luke run across what felt like half of Dagobah. Luke supposed that if he had grown up doing this sort of thing, this level of activity wouldn’t have been so tortuous. 

The first time he moved a rock with the Force, though, was amazing. 

He could actually  _ do this _ . 

Luke always knew he was special, but this was unreal. 

Today’s lesson involved focusing the mind while exerting the body, which meant trying to stack rocks while doing a headstand, and listening to Yoda expound on Jedi philosophy. 

The small green alien had finally moved on from telling Luke that emotions were terrible (which had sparked at least one instance of Luke storming off to get a moment of quiet before returning), but Luke still brooded on it when he was back at his ship at night. 

It couldn’t be a choice between repressed stoicism or the Dark Side. Those couldn’t be the only options.

There had to be another way. 

He kept repeating that to himself at night as his sore muscles throbbed with pain. Yoda might be the teacher here, but Luke was still his own person. He didn’t have to blindly accept everything he was told. 

So much of his recent years would never have happened if Luke had just accepted everything he was told about the Empire. Being skeptical of the way things were may not have saved his life, but it certainly had saved his soul. 

“Test everything,” his father had said. “You’ll never learn otherwise.”

It was hard, sometimes, to argue with a philosophy that let you  _ move things with your mind _ , though. 

It wasn’t until Yoda told him to reach out with his feelings that Luke finally lost his concentration. He fell over onto his back, accompanied by the tower of stones he had built falling as well. 

“My  _ feelings _ ?” he said incredulously. “You mean those things you’ve been telling me to let go of all this time?”

Yoda looked stern. “Your senses, I mean. Too fixated on the question of emotions, you are. No thought for where you are in the moment.” He punctuated that last sentence with a thump of his cane on the ground. 

Luke brushed the dirt from his pants and sat up. “How is it a fixation if you keep lecturing me about it anyway?”

Yoda did not reply. 

Luke’s temper flared. “I overheard you talking with Obi-Wan. I know you think I’m some kind of Dark Side time bomb.” He dug his hands into the soft ground. “You compared me to  _ Vader. _ That’s just… how could you even think that? You didn’t even know me.”

“Reasons, there are, for concern,” Yoda said. “Sensed much darkness in you, I did. And still do.”

“Darkness? I’m not surprised, seeing as I’m Enemy Number One across most of the known galaxy, I have a psychotic Sith Lord on my tail, I haven’t gotten to rest in what feels like a century now, and, oh right:  _ my entire planet was destroyed _ . Obviously I’m not going to come here full of sunshine and light. So I come all this way and have to practically beg you to train me, which you didn’t want to do because I’m, what? Descended from some Jedi you don’t want to talk about but obviously didn’t like? I just…” He exhaled and felt some of his anger leave him. “I’m trying to follow your instructions as much as I can, but so much of this is just completely messed up.”

Yoda was silent for a time, then said, “Go off on your own, you should. Take some time to think and reflect.”

Luke stood up. “Yeah, well, you too, I bet.”

* * *

He really had meant to go back to his ship and meditate.

Instead, he found himself at the entrance to the cave. Something about it felt different now. As though the time was finally right. 

He still didn’t want to go in, but his feet drew him closer and closer, almost as it they were under someone else’s control. 

His hands brushed the walls of the entrance. He expected that there would be life inside, but instead he just sensed nothingness. 

Nothingness and a deep well of endless dark. 

His vision blurred and he sank to his knees. 

Something was wrong here. He felt a sudden sense of overwhelming vertigo, and then felt himself falling further than he ever thought possible. 

_ He was with Han in the cockpit of the Falcon. Han was leveling a blaster at him.  _

_ “You don’t think Leia’s going to be able to do it,” Han said quietly. _

He remembered this. The battle at Yavin. 

_ “I didn’t say that,” Luke pleaded. “In fact, this could give her more time.” _

Han was upset. Was he this upset at the time? 

_ “The fact is that you honestly thought that your own allies couldn’t find their own asses with a map and an astromech, so you decided that the best thing to do would be to do something that I assume plenty of people told you was a dumb idea and put yourself in danger because you didn’t think that anyone else could do it right. You have that little regard for your own people.” _

_ Luke glared at him. _

How  _ dare _ he. Luke was doing all of this for  _ them _ , to save  _ them _ , and all anyone wanted to do was tell him how idiotic he was. And Han, of all people, was holding him at blasterpoint, as if he was some kind of Imperial scum. 

_ Luke reached out with the Force, yanked the blaster out of Han’s hand and sent it skittering down the corridor outside the cockpit. Han tried to lunge after it but Luke’s voice stopped him. “No.” _

No.

Wait.

Luke didn’t remember this part. 

_ “No,” he said to Han again. _

_ Han turned back to him, blinking slowly.  _

_ “You’re going to help me,” Luke ordered him. “You’re going to fly the ship, let me out, and then leave. And you’re going to forget that this ever happened, do you understand me?” _

_ Han’s head drooped slightly. Then he looked up brightly. “Look,” said Han, “let me at the controls. I can fly circles around these Imperials, trust me.” _

What did he just  _ do _ ?

_ “I sure hope the tractor beam is still disabled,” Han said, taking Luke’s place in the pilot’s chair, “otherwise this is going to be a pretty short distraction.” _

_ Luke stood in the doorway of the cockpit, arms wrapped around himself. It was all going to be okay. Just don’t think about what you did.  _

Don’t think about it. 

But now, on his knees in this horrible cave, Luke was remembering. 

He was remembering all of it. 

Every Foundation employee he had coerced into helping him. Every member of the Alderaanian elite he had manipulated. Every time he used the Force to get his own way because he knew that he was  _ right _ . 

No. 

Even his father. 

Even…

No. Stop.

He didn’t want to remember this.

Not this part. 

_ “No. No, Luke, this is over.” _

_ “What are you talking about?” _

_ “We’re going to get caught.” _

_ “That’s not true. We can get out of here.” _

That night at the Rhooni’s party.

_ “Piko’s going to give us up. If we run then it’s just going to go worse for us,” she said. She looked deflated. “Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and salvage what you can—” _

_ “Winter, no—” _

Please, he pleaded, don’t make me remember this part. 

_ “I’m afraid, Luke! If we get caught and interrogated… I could give everything away—” _

_ “No!” _

Please.

He had been so angry, and so scared. And she  _ wasn’t listening _ . 

Why couldn’t she just listen to him?

He was  _ right. _ He was always right.

_ “That’s not true!” he yelled. He grabbed her by the arm and shook her. “No. You’re just as stuck with this as I am. You don’t get to cut and run.” _

_ Winter looked terrified. “What are you doing? Let go!” _

_ “We’re going to go. Now.” Luke whispered, locking eyes with her. “So keep quiet.” _

_ They went down the hall and found the back staircase. Two black-clad Imperials stopped them. _

Even remembering it now, what he did next was a blur.

_ There was no escaping the sound of that one’s neck snapping.  _

_ “What are you doing?” Winter said. She had started crying.  _

_ “I told you to keep quiet,” he said coldly. They raced across the lawn to where the landspeeders were kept. _

There was more. 

He didn’t want to remember this. 

_ “You killed them!” _

_ “No, I didn’t! That wasn’t what happened!” _

_ “Yes it was! Why are you trying to deny that?” _

He  _ was _ trying to erase it. Just like so many other things he had done. 

_ “Because it. Didn’t. Happen,” he said, starting up the landspeeder. He looked at her and saw a sudden calm settle over her face.  _

_ “You’re right,” she said dreamily. “I must have misremembered.” _

_ Which stopped Luke cold.  _

_ Winter had a perfect memory. He looked at her in horror.  _

_ It was as though she was waking up. She blinked rapidly a few times.  _

_ And then looked at him with such fear and betrayal.  _

He didn’t want to remember this. 

But he was remembering anyway. 

He was remembering all of it. 

And there was nowhere to run, now. 

He was trapped at the bottom of this well with no way out. 

Yoda had sensed darkness in him? He didn’t know the half of it. 

_ Luke! _

Leia. She was calling for him. 

He tried reaching out. Tried to find her. But he was trapped. 

And then there she was, in front of him. 

With her lightsaber ignited in her hand. 

And a look on her face that matched Winter’s. 

She knew. She knew what he had done. And now he was going to pay for it. 

She swung the saber at him. He threw up his hands as if to fend it off…

...and watched as bluish-purple lightning shot from his hands, engulfing her in agony.

She screamed and fell to the ground. 

Luke wanted to stop, but he somehow couldn’t. All he could do was watch her writhe on the floor of the cave as he poured Force energy into her, laughing in a high and cold voice. 

He wasn’t in danger of turning into Vader.

He was in danger of turning into something much worse. 

* * *

He woke up outside the cave. Yoda was there.

“Was this some kind of sick joke?” he rasped. He must have screamed his throat raw. “Was this your doing?”

Yoda shook his head. “A cave of the Dark Side, it is. Visions, it can show. Warnings. Lies. Ugly truths.”

Luke shook his head to clear it. Ugly truths indeed. He had done some horrible things in his life. He had hurt so many people. He risked hurting so many more. 

What should he do now?

The right thing to do would be to submit. Listen to Yoda’s teachings, push aside his feelings, just let it all go. 

But he couldn’t do that. Not with Han out there mind tricked into thinking that nothing was wrong. 

He couldn’t stay here. 

“I have to leave,” he told Yoda as he climbed to his feet. 

“Leave?” Yoda asked, surprised. 

“I’m not ready to do this yet.” 

“Jedi training, abandoned, a risk this is.”

“Well, I’m worried about the risks if I  _ do _ stick around,” Luke said. “I saw… some things that scared me in the cave. If that was a test... I think I failed.” He looked down at his feet in embarrassment. “I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“Not wasted,” Yoda said. “Much here have you learned, but perhaps a different path awaits you. Return one day, you may. And Luke,” he said, “failure teaches much, if learn from it you do.”

“Thanks,” he said. There wasn’t much else to say, he supposed. 

Leia was the Jedi Yoda was waiting to train. 

She could handle this, he knew. 

The Rebellion needed him for something else. He had to get back to it. 

And maybe then he could start making amends. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the chapter I was most nervous about posting. I mean, we're talking about _Luke Skywalker_ here, and now he's coming face-to-face with having done some fairly fucked up shit in the past? Can he still be the hero? Did I make him a villain?
> 
> My answer to that last question, or at least my intention, is no. Luke's still a hero; he's just not a perfect one. No hero is perfect. Everyone has to confront some things that they've done in the past. Luke (and Leia, for that matter) is no exception.
> 
> So what's different about this alternate universe? What's even _happening_ here? Well, when trying to envision what things would have changed if Luke grew up on Alderaan, one of those things was privilege. I tried addressing some of it in Book 1: Luke had a privileged childhood where he rarely heard the word "no"— even the sweetest, most loving kid would have ended up with at least a _little_ entitlement as a result. Combine that with untrained Force powers and you've got a recipe for some problematic behavior, even without intending to do so. 
> 
> So why on earth did Luke get the call to Dagobah instead of Leia? Because Luke needed to remember what he did. Much like in the movie, this was a test for him: confronted with this revelation, what would he do? Repress it again or choose to make amends? And unlike the movie, Luke passes the test. We'll see how this plays out in the next few chapters.


	9. Clouds

Leia decided to walk back to the  _ Falcon  _ from the Naberrie house instead of accepting their offer of a ride. The previous evening had been wonderful. 

She remembered back on Tatooine, when the Darklighters would have the entire family over for a big dinner; Biggs once invited her to join them. There was an outrageous amount of food, drink, and people from all over Tatooine. Being from a small town like Anchorhead, Leia couldn’t imagine knowing that many people, let alone being related to them. 

The Darklighters had  _ nothing _ on the Naberries. Leia could barely keep track of all the names, nicknames, lineage, and various quirks of what seemed like an endless parade of people. They all had questions for her, stories about her mother, and exhortations to sit down, relax, and, above all, eat. 

And the food.  _ The food _ . 

Leia didn’t think she would ever be able to eat again after all that food. 

Sola had even sent her off with a box of pastries. 

She was part of a new family. A pushy, loud, impossibly numerous family, and she loved every minute of it. 

Luke needed to see this. 

Which reminded her: she needed to get back to the Rebellion as soon as possible. 

Back at the  _ Falcon _ , she tried using the pastries as a kind of apology. Han took one politely but remained at arm’s-length; Chewie, on the other hand, seemed to be in better spirits and was somewhat mollified by the gesture. 

Of course, he may have just been happy that they would be parting ways soon. 

“So,” Han said, “the hyperdrive is fixed and the old girl is ready to fly again. Have you figured out where you’re going yet?”

“I’m… yes,” Leia said. “I should get back to the Alliance. I can check in with the agent on Bespin and find out where everyone is at the moment. I’ll…” she looked down at her hands, “I’ll catch a ride from there.”

“You’ll ‘catch a ride’ to a Rebel base?”

“I’ll figure something out. I don’t want to take up more of your time than I already have,” she said in a low voice. 

Han was silent. Then finally said, “Okay, fine. Bespin it is. We’ll be leaving shortly.”

He normally would have teased her about being shuttled around like royalty. 

He would have called her "princess."

But not anymore. 

* * *

Bespin was a planet of clouds. Or at least that’s how it looked from space. Though perhaps there were some strange lifeforms lurking down within it, the inhabitants of Bespin lived in floating stations above the planet, mining Tibanna gas from the air and freezing it in carbonite for export. It reminded Leia a little of moisture farming.

The Rebel agent could be contacted upon arrival via a series of coded messages conveyed by a protocol droid who worked the docking bays. Their contact, code-named Socorro, would meet them in a nearby tourist cantina. 

Leia tried not to start drinking while she waited. Han seemed to be trying as well. Chewie had stayed on the ship.

“Han,” she said, moving her chair closer to his, “I don’t know how to feel right now. This isn’t the way I saw things going.”

“Look,” he said, “I shouldn’t have just assumed that you were comfortable with how things were. I thought that if I was here, then it was just a given that we were okay.”

“I guess we never really talked about what we actually were,” Leia admitted. “Or where we saw this going.”

“It’s not a bad regret to have, I guess,” Han said. “Regretting that we didn’t talk more.”

“Yeah,” Leia said, starting to seriously consider ordering a drink. 

“And hey, I’m still up for giving you a ride to the base,” he said, “if you need one.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I just…”

“What is it?”

“I just worry that if you give me that ride, you’ll stay. And we’ll just fall into that old pattern again where we don’t talk about the things that are bothering us until it’s too late,” she said in a rush. 

“Oh you have  _ got _ to be kidding me,” Han said with a sudden exasperation. He looked around the room.

“I’m just saying what I was worried about—”

“No, not that,” Han said. “I think I just figured out who our contact is.”

A dark-skinned man a little older than Han was approached them at the bar.

“Say,” he asked Han. “Didn’t I see you at the sabacc table on Telos IV?”

“Just came in from Socorro, actually,” Leia replied, following the code prompt. The man continued looking at Han. 

Suddenly, he grabbed Han by the lapels and growled in his face, “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming here after what you pulled.”

Leia jumped up to pull him off but before she could intervene, both men were laughing and slapping each other on the back. 

“I won her fair and square!” Han said, still laughing. 

“Hey, don’t blame me, that was the question I was supposed to ask!”

“Not the second part, I know that much!”

“What is going on?” Leia asked, confused. 

“Oh, right!” Han said, more cheerful than before. “Leia, may I present pirate, con man, and all around scoundrel, Lando Calrissian.”

“ _ You’re _ Lando?” she said, astonished. She remembered Han telling stories about him years ago. 

“As well as Socorro,” Lando said with a smile that Leia couldn’t deny was fairly charming. He took her hand and gave it a kiss. 

She laughed and rolled her eyes a little. “Better be careful,” she said. “Han’s told me a lot about you.”

Lando looked over at Han in mock offense. “You’ve been maligning my good name, I suppose?”

Han held up his hands. “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true!”

Lando laughed. “Come on, let me take you somewhere a bit more classy. Our liaison is waiting for us there.”

* * *

Lando got his revenge fairly quickly, as he regaled Leia with stories of some of Han’s less impressive antics.

“...so then this guy here, he decides to walk up to Bhoo and act like some sort of diva, spouting off some nonsense about the  _ Falcon _ being the fastest ship in the galaxy… what was it, Han?”

Han gave an embarrassed smile. “That it made the Kessel Run in—”

“Oh yes, that it made the Kessel Run in ‘twelve parsecs’.”

“Isn’t that a unit of distance?” Leia asked, confused.

“Exactly!” Lando said triumphantly. “But he was just so  _ cocky _ about it that it actually  _ worked _ and they let him into the race—”

“Which I promptly lost—” Han interjected.

“But it  _ did _ mean that he was able to get back on the  _ Falcon _ and hide the new chronobank before Tigun came back,” Lando finished. 

“Wait,  _ this _ is the famous Han Solo?” asked a young woman quietly as she approached their table. She looked about Leia’s age, with black hair pinned up in a bun and a business-like dress. Without further comment, she sat down next to Leia. 

“And here is our liaison,” Lando said. “Terra, meet Han and the lovely Leia.”

“You’re  _ the  _ Leia?” Terra asked her in surprise.

“I guess so?” Leia replied. 

“Well, a pleasure to meet you,” Terra said, shaking her hand briskly. “So, I understand that you’re both trying to take a very particular vacation?”

“Just her,” Han said with a note of sadness. Leia saw Han and Lando exchange a look. 

“My apologies,” Terra said smoothly, and continued. “We’ll be meeting with a transport carrying some supplies over in Apex City—that’s the next station over—and you can leave on that tomorrow morning. For now, feel free to enjoy yourself; Cloud City has a number of amenities for all income levels, including—”

Lando laughed. “Terra’s cover is a tour guide here in Cloud City; she likes showing off her knowledge of the place.”

“I like showing off in general,” she said with a smile. “Now,” she said, turning to Leia, “where do you—” She suddenly froze. 

“What is it?” Leia asked. 

Still keeping a smile on her face, she leaned over to talk to Lando. “I recognize that man at the counter. Brown jacket.”

“One of Durga’s thugs?” Lando asked quietly. 

“Worse.”

“Intelligence?”

“Precisely. We should leave. Now.  _ Casually. _ ”

Lando helped Terra up and put an arm around her waist. Within a moment, they were old lovers, heading home after a night out on the town. 

“Shall we?” Han asked, standing above Leia and offering his hand. 

She took it. They walked hand in hand out of the cantina and into the maze of multilevel walkways. As they passed the Intelligence agent, she gave Han’s hand a small squeeze. 

Sometimes there were things you couldn’t say with words. 

I’m scared. 

I miss you already. 

I’m sorry. 

Lando and Terra had turned a corner ahead of them, and then swiftly turned and came back to Han and Leia. “We’ve got more problems than I thought,” Lando said in a tense voice. 

“Stormtroopers,” Terra said. “Move. Now.”

They hurried in the other direction, only to skid to a halt at the sight of more white-helmeted troopers heading their way. 

“This is just like the damn Death Star all over again,” Han muttered. He drew his blaster. Leia unclipped her lightsaber. 

The stormtroopers opened fire. Leia ignited her saber and began deflecting bolts as Han, Lando, and Terra dove into a nearby doorway. 

With a grim satisfaction, Leia realized that she was managing to deflect some blaster bolts back at the stormtroopers. She heard more than one yell as they fell over, wounded. 

More troopers arrived from the other direction. This was getting beyond Leia’s abilities, she knew. She began backing into the doorway where her friends were hiding. 

Suddenly, the troopers stopped firing. Leia peered back out into the walkway and her heart stopped in her chest. 

It was Darth Vader. 

She stepped back out into the main path and held up her lightsaber. 

“Remember me, asshole?” she spat. 

Vader turned to his troops. “Imprison the others; they may be of some use. Leave  _ her _ to me.” He drew and ignited his own red saber. 

Good. This was the way she wanted it to be. 

Her versus Vader. One on one. 

And she was going to win. 

She ran at Vader, bringing her lightsaber down in a powerful overhand strike. 

He deflected it easily, and slashed back at her. She leaped back and balanced on the rail of the walkway. Vader slashed at the railing itself, sending Leia falling. 

She grabbed onto the railing of the next walkway down, and pulled herself up and over onto the path. 

She heard blaster fire and the march of stormtroopers overhead. She hoped Han was all right. 

Leia spied a walkway halfway between the one she was currently on and the one she had just been on. She jumped, counting on the Force to give her enough velocity to land. 

Vader was there waiting for her. 

“You have learned much, young Skywalker,” Vader said. “But not quite enough.”

A volley of lightsaber slashes blurred before her eyes. Leia only just managed to fend them off. 

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. 

She was supposed to be winning. 

And then everything would be all right again. 

Wait. That wasn’t her thought. That was from that dream she had on Naboo. 

Vader. 

She must have been inside his head. She could anticipate his moves. 

She raised her lightsaber to block. Parry. Block again.

Move closer. Slash. Feint. 

“Good…” Vader said, leaping back from another slash. He sounded... impressed?

“What?” Leia said, only half paying attention.

“Obi-Wan has taught you well. You have controlled your fear... now release your anger.”

“Don’t you dare,” Leia snarled. “Don’t you dare say his name!”

She pressed on, slashing wildly. No more chances to try and anticipate. 

An alarm resounded through the city. At the same time, a similar note of alarm was beginning to build in the back of Leia’s mind. 

_ You’re doing exactly what he told you to do. _

_ You’re releasing your anger. _

_ This is the Dark Side. _

Leia gave a wordless growl and jumped back out of Vader’s range. 

“Your destiny lies with me, young Skywalker. You do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power.”

“You’re right about that destiny part,” Leia said. “Because I’m killing you. Here. Now.”

She brought her lightsaber down again. And again. And again. 

She might have only dueled with gaffi sticks, but she could use the Force to give her power. 

Vader began to move backwards along the walkway. 

If she could only strike a little harder, or swing a little faster…

Another alarm in the back of her head:

_ You were in his mind… _

_ You remember what he was thinking… _

_ What he was thinking about Padme. _

No. 

That couldn’t be true.

_ He said the Ben turned her against him. _

_ Which meant… _

No. 

_ Which meant that he used to be… _

No. 

No, that was impossible. 

“No!” she screamed, throwing herself at Vader, swinging wildly. 

Though initially surprised, Vader ducked to avoid her swing, moved quickly to one side, and then slashed horizontally at her midsection. 

Leia felt the blade cut right across the middle of her stomach.

She screamed in agony and fell to her side, curling her body around her injury. 

Vader stood over her.  “Perhaps you were not as strong as the Emperor thought,” he said. 

Looking up at him, Leia’s eyes hardened into a look of utter hate. Throwing one hand out, she screamed again, too far gone for words. 

Propelled by the Force, Vader was pushed against the rail and fell over the side. 

Exhausted, Leia slumped back to the ground. 

The next few minutes were a blur. Then Han was there, clutching her shoulders. 

“Just breathe, just breathe,” he was saying. It was only then that she realized that something was wrong with her breathing. 

“Where’s a medbay?” she heard Lando yell.

“Nothing that can handle this kind of injury,” Terra said, examining her. “Maybe Apex City, but she might not make it even that far.”

“We have to think quickly, we’re losing her.”

Han again. “Leia, just breathe.”

More conversing between Lando and Terra. 

“...but it’s the best chance we have of moving her safely.”

“She might die from the freezing process alone.”

“I didn’t say it was an ideal plan, but it might be the only one we have.”

“Are you crazy?” Han sounded. He was about to say more, but blaster fire erupted around them. She felt him pick her up and run. 

“Who is  _ that _ guy?” Lando yelled.

“Bounty hunter,” Terra said. “Boba Fett. Typically does Hutt bounties.”

“And which one of us would he even be after?”

“If I recall correctly—and believe me, I always do—there’s a bounty out on her from Jabba on Tatooine," Terra said, gesturing at Leia. "Dead or alive.”

They were all beginning to sound further and further away. 

Of course Jabba was going to catch up with her sooner or later. 

“Han…” she said. 

“I’m here,” he said. “We’re almost there. You’re going to be okay.”

“Tell Luke… Vader…”

“I’ll warn him. Just breathe.”

“No… tell him…” she tried to say. Everything was falling away. 

“I’ll tell him.”

“Han…”

“What is it?”

“...I love you.”

Just before it all went dark, she heard him say “I know.”


	10. Darkness

Luke arrived to a city in chaos.

Imperial soldiers and Cloud City’s local security forces were exchanging blaster fire from various points around the city. Citizens were screaming and trying to hide indoors.

They had the right idea, Luke thought, making his way over to the nearest public establishment: a cantina that was, from the outside, relatively quiet. No point in going back to his ship yet; Imperial agents were swarming all over the station and he had only barely managed to elude them on his way in.

This was, in retrospect, a really bad idea.

It became an even worse one when he entered and realized why it was so quiet in the cantina: it had been occupied by Imperial Intelligence.

A pair of stormtroopers covered the main room while an agent went from huddled group to huddled group, questioning them.

Luke breathed, trying to find calm. This wasn’t the Death Star. He could handle this. He could  _do_ something. He just didn't know what yet.

“You,” said one of the stormtroopers, gesturing to him with a blaster, “get over there.” The trooper indicated an empty table in the corner. Luke complied, keeping one eye on the Intelligence agent.

He didn’t have any identification and was one of the most recognizable members of the Rebellion now. His face was covered in stubble from being too distracted on Dagobah to shave, but any close examination would uncover who he was.

It would have been an easy thing, to reach into the mind of the stormtroopers and make them let him go. Or to make the Intelligence officer see identification that he didn’t have.

It would have been so easy to tamper with their minds. It would have even been justified considering that they would probably imprison him or worse.

He couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not again. There had to be another way.

It wasn’t a _much_ better idea, but it kept him out of the heads of other people: Luke breathed slowly, concentrated, and vanished.

Quietly, ever so quietly, he stood and headed for the door.

He had never tried anything like this before. But it was somehow working, at least for the moment.

It wasn’t until he was in the doorway that he realized he had forgotten to cover his shadow.

“What is that?” one of the troopers said in alarm.

Luke’s veil vanished, and he ran as the troopers opened fire. He needed to find somewhere safer to hide out until things calmed down and he could get back to his ship.

And go… where? This was his best shot of getting back to the Rebellion, but if Imperial agents were here, there was a good chance that his contact was in custody or in hiding at best.

Think about that later. First he needed to keep from being shot while he ran away.

It was easy to hear a group of stormtroopers coming: they always marched in unison, even while jogging. Luke wasn’t sure how they did it; it must have been drilled into them from day one.

Regardless, they were coming towards him. Luke noticed a throng of civilians heading for a walkway towards the docking bay. This was his best chance to get there, hidden in the crowd.

Several levels above him, he heard the sounds of blaster fire and shouting.

He slipped into the crowd as it got close and, in the chaos of citizens and Imperials and Cloud City security, made it to the walkway.

Just as they got partway across, another group of stormtroopers appeared at the far side. Luke and the others were trapped.

As he stepped forward, nervously, his foot kicked against something metallic. He looked down.

It was a lightsaber.

He recognized it: Leia’s saber. He bent down and picked it up.

She was here, somewhere.

Though if she was missing her lightsaber, something must have happened to her.

He tentatively opened himself to the Force, trying to sense her in the city.

He couldn’t find her, but he sensed something else.

Vader was here.

Luke gripped the saber tightly. If Vader was here and Leia was not…

Or wasn’t anymore.

He felt his anger rise. If something had happened to her…

No. Just breathe.

Leia might just be in hiding. He probably should be too, considering that Vader could likely sense him as well.

But Luke was done hiding. He was done doing the easy thing.

Taking a step apart from the rest of the crowd, he ignited the lightsaber.

If Vader wanted him, that monster could come and get him.

Better than being shot by Imperial Intelligence.

Sure enough, he heard a stormtrooper shouting into his comm, “Someone inform Lord Vader!”

Raising the saber over his head, Luke gave a yell and charged at the stormtroopers.

It was an idiotic move, but it somehow worked. The troopers, not used to the sight of anyone wielding a lightsaber, scattered.

Luke pressed on through the station, eventually switching off the lightsaber. He knew he had no idea what he was doing and was probably just as likely to chop off his own arms as hit anyone else with the weapon.

But he couldn’t deny that it felt incredible.

The noise of the troopers began to fade, as did the rush of adrenaline from his charge. It was only then that he realized that he was lost.

He was going to have to backtrack to the open area with the walkways if he was going to get to the docking bay. As invincible as he had felt earlier, he knew that the ideal ending would be to get off Cloud City entirely without _any_ entanglements.

The lights had grown dimmer, the area more mechanical. Corridors were marked off, not with street names, but with anonymous numbers. This must be a power generation area of the station, or perhaps somewhere where mined gas was processed. As he went further through the twisting maze of access panels and utility conduits, the area grew quiet. Eerily quiet.

Luke had a bad feeling about this.

He tried to shut out the memory of being pursued through the Death Star. The dreams he had had since then of Vader right behind him, following him with slow strides but somehow always just within reach, his mechanical breathing the only sound Luke could hear.

And the only sound he could hear now.

Vader was here.

Luke reignited the saber. Hearing Vader but not being able to see him was somehow much worse than being directly in front of him. He felt like one of those rats that Leia said she used to hunt on Tatooine: surrounded on all sides, knowing that an attack was close but not knowing from where it would come. Feeling like prey.

His feet kept him moving, though the rest of him felt like he was frozen.

Luke turned the final corner and came face to face with his nightmare.

Vader seemed unsurprised to find Luke wielding the saber. He had ignited his own red one, and the glow of both weapons turned the narrow corridor into a burst of lights and shadows that might have been almost festive if the situation different.

“I see you have taken up a lightsaber,” Vader said. “But you are no Jedi. Not yet.”

“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Luke said.

“Neither do you, your highness,” Vader replied. “You have only begun to realize your power. But it needs guidance if you are to realize your full potential.”

“So, what, you’re saying I should go back to Jedi school or something?” Luke scoffed. His voice shook slightly.

Just breathe.

“Your destiny does not lie with the Jedi… but with the Dark Side.”

Luke felt a flash of anger.

“You don’t know a _thing_ about me,” Luke said, trying to keep his voice level.

“You will find that I know quite a bit about you, Luke. You may have hidden your thoughts from me on the Death Star, but your feelings make you easy to read, even now.” It was true; Luke’s mental defenses were down, and he could feel Vader’s fingers inside of his mind. “There is a darkness hidden deep inside of you, waiting to rise to the surface. You have dabbled in the Dark Side… but you have yet to embrace it. You have chosen to ignore it, to forget it, to—”

“Get out of my head!” Luke screamed, lunging at Vader with the lightsaber.

Vader parried it easily, almost lazily. “Yes,” he said. “Give in to your hate.”

Luke swung again, but to no avail.

“It will make you stronger, more powerful.”

Another swing. Another parry.

Why wasn’t Vader fighting back?

“It could help you to defeat me.”

Was Vader… encouraging him?

“It could help you to defeat even the Emperor himself.”

Luke stopped. “What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“Luke… the Force is strong with you. The Emperor has foreseen the risk you pose to him. If you embrace your destiny, you could destroy him. _We_ could destroy him.”

Luke took a step back. “Are you… are you asking me to _join_ you?”

“Yes,” Vader said. “Join me, and we could overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy together.”

“That’s insane.”

“I can sense your feelings, your frustrations, your pain. Your guilt at the lives lost, people who chose to follow you. If you join me, then the war is over. The pointless bloodshed is over. All those lives… you could save them.”

“How… how could you _possibly_ imagine that I would join you?” Luke said. The monster from his nightmares wasn’t slicing him to pieces, but asking for… an alliance? This was _surreal_.

Vader held out a gloved hand.

Something inside Luke’s heart hardened into durasteel. Through clenched teeth, he growled, “You’ve killed hundreds of my comrades, thousands of Jedi, and _billions_ on my homeworld. My friends. My family. My _father._ ”

On that final word, he swung his saber and cut off Vader’s outstretched hand.

Instead of flesh and bone, the cut revealed only mechanical pieces, some still sparking with an ugly ozone smell.

“Your _father_?” Vader said, stepping closer to Luke. Luke took a weak swing at Vader, but Vader’s parry was strong enough to knock the saber out of Luke’s hand. Vader dropped his own saber and grabbed Luke by the neck, lifting him up and slamming him into the corridor wall.

“Your _real_ father,” Vader said, “is not dead.”

Struggling to inhale, Luke rasped, “What are… you talking about?”

The pressure on his throat increased.

“ _I_ am your father.”

No.

“No,” Luke said weakly. “No, that can’t be true.”

“Search your feelings,” Vader demanded. “You know it to be true.”

Something inside Luke plummeted. He felt like he was falling.

“The Force is strong in your family,” Vader continued. “You and your twin sister are both powerful. It is your destiny to join me, to join the Dark Side, to bring _order_ to the galaxy.”

Luke’s vision began to grow dark around the edges. “I’ll never join you…”

“It is useless to resist. Don’t make me destroy you like I did your sister.”

Leia.

Leia was his sister.

“No… you can’t have...” But he didn’t sense her earlier, nor could he now.

No.

Not Leia.

Not now.

“No!” Luke cried. “ _No!_ ” His hands, which had been clutched weakly around Vader’s wrist, began to spark with a strange blue-purple light.

Something inside of him had started and it couldn’t be stopped.

Luke gave in and let the darkness inside him out.

Luke poured his pain, his anger, and his despair into the Force, and the Force rewarded him tenfold. The power in his hands grew, until he realized that Vader’s grip on him was beginning to weaken. He pushed harder; lightning began to crawl up Vader’s arm.

“You see?” Vader said. “It is your destiny.” He let go of Luke’s neck.

“No!” Luke screamed again, and Vader went flying backwards in a tangle of Dark Side energy.

Kill him now, a voice inside him said.

It would be so easy.

He heard the marching footsteps of stormtroopers approaching.

Deal with them first, the darkness inside him said. Then come back and finish him off.

He turned and met the stormtroopers head on.

It was as though his emotions and the Force were working in complete harmony. A flick of the wrist and the first trooper went flying, knocking over the one behind him. In the narrow corridor, they could only come two at a time.

This would be easy.

Using the Force, he pulled the lightsaber into his hand and ignited it, deflecting a blaster bolt back at the trooper who had fired it. He gave another Force shove and the next trooper was flung up and against the ceiling.

Now within range, Luke began swinging his saber, cutting down the stormtroopers one by one.

It was so easy.

It was only when he had make it to the other side of the group did his anger fade, only to be replaced by fear.

What was he _doing_?

That cold voice from his memories, the ones he had tried to block out. That wasn’t him. That _couldn’t_ have been him.

But he had listened to it anyway.

There were other ways and he had ignored them. He had used the Dark Side. Because it was easy. Because it was there. Because he knew just enough to be dangerous.

It was during that moment of horrified reflection that one of the fallen troopers hit him with a stun bolt.

In his last moments of consciousness, he heard Vader say “Prepare my shuttle and bring him aboard. We will leave for Coruscant as soon as possible.”

* * *

He didn’t know how much time had passed until he woke up.

He was surprised to find himself staring up at something other than the ceiling of an Imperial ship. The moons of Bespin shone above him.

“Luke!”

“Han?” Luke said, sitting up. He was surrounded by a small group of people, but Han’s concerned face brought back those horrible memories of before, during the battle at Yavin. The chilling voice that couldn’t possibly have been his.

He still had to apologize and make amends. He had to do _something_ , at least.

But first: “Where’s Leia?” Luke asked. “Did Vader…?”

“She’s alive,” Han said, obviously trying to keep himself together. “Just barely. We got her into carbon freeze just in time, which should keep her stable until we get to a medical facility that can treat her. We were about to move her to the _Falcon_ when we saw them carrying you.” He gave a rueful smile. “Chewie showed up just in time, otherwise we would have been in big trouble ourselves. Now come on, we’ve got to move. Vader might be along any minute.” He offered Luke a hand up.

For a moment, Luke could only see Vader’s outstretched hand.

Then the moment passed.

Just breathe.

He took Han’s hand and got to his feet. Chewbacca was there beside him, and gave him a roar and a pat on the back. Luke didn’t speak Shyriiwook, but hoped that whatever he said was encouraging.

The third person was a dark-skinned man with a moustache and a sky-blue cape. “Lando,” he said by way of introduction. “We left Terra guarding Leia. She knows her way around a blaster, but we should hurry anyway.”

Luke nodded and jogged behind them as they headed for the docking bay where the _Falcon_ waited. His body was still recovering from the effects of the stun bolt, so he arrived a minute or two after the others.

From a distance, he could see a young woman sprawled on the gangway into the _Falcon_ , clutching what looked like a blaster wound to the shoulder.

“And you’re sure it was him?” Han was asking, almost frantic.

“Of course I’m sure,” snapped a familiar voice. “He shot me and took her. His ship is long gone by now.”

Chewie roared something.

“Tatooine, I’m assuming?” Lando asked.

Han nodded.

Luke was finally close enough to see the woman’s face.

His heart stopped in his chest.

Her hair color was different, but he would know her face anywhere.

“Winter,” he said.


	11. Atonement

“I still can’t believe you’re  _ here _ .”

“I found other things to do, Luke. Things that kept me away from Alderaan.” Winter looked away for a moment. “I hadn’t been back in months when… it happened.”

“And you joined up with the Rebellion.”

“Technically I joined back when we were running the Foundation, the same as you. But yes, I started recruiting for the Rebellion as my main job after I left. Lando here was one of my proudest achievements.”

“I was  _ happy _ back before I met her,” Lando jokingly complained. Winter smiled back at him. 

“It’s true, he was a very happy smuggler and gambler before I got to him,” she said. “And then I made his life all sorts of complicated and now he is a grumpy but committed con man on behalf of the Rebellion.”

“Oh no,” Han groaned. “You’re not just an intermediary?”

Lando shot him a winning smile. “I have to occupy myself  _ somehow _ while waiting for lost Rebels to show up.”

“Lando here managed to maneuver himself into position as Cloud City’s second-most prominent citizen—”

“A  _ legitimate  _ citizen, at that,” Lando interrupted.

“And was in a position to wrangle his way into being the city’s administrator when the Imperials showed up and it all went to hell,” Winter finished.

“I could have been a  _ Baron _ ,” Lando moaned. 

“That explains the cape, I guess,” Han said.

“It would have been the greatest con job ever,” he said. 

“And then what?” Han asked. 

“And then the Rebellion would have had access to one of the only sources of Tibanna gas in the galaxy, at a  _ very _ generous discount. Not to mention a highly defensible area for clandestine operations,” Lando said. 

“And you would have been making credits hand over fist,” Han pointed out. 

“How else is a galactic entrepreneur going to make a living?”

“And what about you, Terra?” Han asked. “Interested in being co-administrator?”

Winter laughed. “I don’t know… a Baron and a lady like me?” She gave Lando a wink.

Luke didn’t join in on the laughter that followed. Winter seemed happy. She was doing something she cared about and seemed to have found someone to partner with that made her happy. 

Someone new to partner with. He felt something sad twinge in his heart. 

Just breathe. 

This isn’t about you.

Winter caught his eye finally and sighed. “I think Luke and I have some things to talk about. If you’ll excuse us.”

They headed to the  _ Falcon’s  _ berth. 

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked.

“Slightly crispy, but I’ll be fine,” she said lightly. “I’ve had worse.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, I mean…” He took a deep breath. “I remember what happened.”

“At the Rhooni’s, you mean,” she said in a low voice.

“Yes.”

“What do you mean, ‘you remember’?”

“I…” Luke hesitated. This was an awful excuse. How could he have done this? “I made myself forget somehow. With the Force. It was like… one minute we were in the bedroom and the next we were at the landspeeder and I blocked the rest of it out.”

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t jealous that you were able to do that,” she said, uncomfortably.

Luke winced, remembering her words in the landspeeder:  _ You’re right. I must have misremembered. _

Winter remembered everything. She always had. 

“What I did…” Luke began. “What I did was horrible. What I did to  _ you _ was horrible.”

“Yes,” she said. “It was.” Her voice was guarded. 

“I don’t think there’s any way I can apologize sufficiently, but I’m sorry. What I did was wrong and your reaction was perfectly understandable.”

“Thank you,” she said. 

“I’m working on doing better. I confronted a lot of ugly things about myself recently. Things I had locked away in my mind.”

“Good.”

“Winter, I’m afraid. There’s something  _ wrong _ with me. Some kind of darkness is trapped inside of me and I can’t get it out.”

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

“I mean the Dark Side of the Force. I’ve been drawing on it and hurting people. People like you. People like Han.”

Her face froze, almost imperceptibly. “You’re still doing these things to people.”

“I’m trying not to—”

“Luke… should I be alone with you right now?”

“You mean, am I going to hurt you? No!” He tried to tamp down the panic rising inside of him. “Winter, please…”

She started to get up, then stopped. For a horrible second Luke worried that he had mind tricked her again, but no. She had decided to stay and talk. 

“It can’t be the way that it used to be, Luke,” she said sadly. She sighed. “I  _ forgive _ you, but I don’t trust you. And it doesn’t look like you trust yourself, either.”

Luke nodded, his eyes closed. 

It came out before he could stop himself: “When we tried to find my birth father, all those years ago… we were wrong. It wasn’t Obi-Wan Kenobi. It was Darth Vader.” He opened his eyes. “I’m the son of the most evil person in the galaxy.”

“That’s… that must be a lot to take in. When did you find out?”

“About three hours ago.”

“Holy  _ shit, _ ” Winter said. 

Luke laughed, in spite of himself. “I know, right?”

“So it’s been a  _ day, _ then.”

“Precisely. But… on the other hand, I’m glad to see you again. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Winter gave him the faintest hint of a smile. “I’m glad you’re okay too, Luke.”

“I’m not sure I  _ am _ okay.”

“I have faith you will be. Eventually.” She stood and went back to join the others. 

* * *

His apology to Han went much worse.

“Chewie, let go of him!” Lando yelled. Chewbacca ignored him, grabbing Luke around the neck with both hands and bellowing what was likely a stream of Wookiee profanity into his face. 

Han was only slightly less upset. “And then you made me  _ forget _ ?”

Luke was fighting, both to breathe as well as to keep from unleashing any kind of Force power onto the furious Wookiee. This was hard. 

It was  _ supposed _ to be hard. 

“I should boot you out the airlock, you royal  _ nightmare _ ,” Han said, running a hand through his hair. “You could have gotten us both killed and I would have never known!”

“I know,” Luke squeezed out of his rapidly closing throat. This was somehow worse than being strangled by Vader. 

“How am I supposed to trust you with anything ever again?”

“Chewie, come on, let go!” Lando said again. “You can’t  _ kill _ him. Han, tell him to stop.”

“Fine,” snarled Han. “Chewie!” Chewbacca let go of Luke’s neck, and Luke fell to his knees in exhaustion and pain. 

“You can’t trust me,” Luke rasped. “I understand.”

“The hell you do!”

“Winter was right— _ I _ don’t even trust myself.” Luke coughed a few times to clear his throat, and then continued. “What I did was unforgivable. I was entitled and idiotic and ended up doing something  _ evil _ . I want to make amends for that.”

“You were in my  _ mind _ . You used the Force on me!” Han snarled. “I can’t think of a single thing you could do that would make up for that. You’re no better than Vader.”

All the energy seemed to drain out of Luke at once. He hung his head. “You’re right,” he whispered. “You’re absolutely right.”

“Okay, stop,” Winter said gently but firmly. “Yes, what Luke did was horrible, but he didn’t murder an entire planet full of people.” She turned to Han. “I know how you must be feeling right now. You’re completely justified in feeling this way. But for the time being, we’re all stuck together so you’re going to have to postpone the murderous urges until we’re at least out of hyperspace again.”

Han continued glaring at Luke, but didn’t say anything else to him. “Come on, Chewie,” he said, and the two headed for the cockpit. 

“The next thing we should talk about,” Winter said, sitting back down, “is how to get Leia back.”

“Shouldn’t Han be here for this?” Luke asked. “I can go back to the berth if that would help.”

Winter looked in the direction of the cockpit. “I think Han… needs some time to process. We can loop him in later. So,” she said, “what we know so far: Leia is currently frozen in a carbonite slab because she took a lightsaber to the guts from Darth Vader and we were out of other options on how to stabilize her. She was stolen from the  _ Falcon _ by one Boba Fett, a notorious bounty hunter who likely saw his chance to collect on a fifty-thousand credit bounty placed on her head by Jabba the Hutt. Therefore, we can likely assume that Leia is on her way to Jabba’s palace on Tatooine.”

“When we arrive at Kilo Base,” Luke said, “we can request backup to launch an assault on the palace.”

“In the middle of Tatooine?” Winter asked, raising an eyebrow. “We’d have to turn half the sand to glass first. Hutts build their strongholds for fortification: you’d need half a fleet to get in there, and there’s no guarantee that we’d even be able to get her out in the ensuing melee.”

“Not to mention, we don’t know the planet, the locals, the makeup of his crew,” Lando said, ticking off the items on his fingers. 

“And  _ also, _ ” Winter added, “we don’t know if the Alliance would even agree to help. Leia’s a hero of the Rebellion, sure, but she’s just one person. That’s a lot of firepower to throw out there for just one person.”

“So what do we do, then?” Luke asked. 

Winter and Lando exchanged a smile. “We go about this  _ delicately _ ,” Winter said. 

“Scope out the place,” Lando said.

“Gather information. Sneak our own people in there.”

“Think of it,” Lando said, “as a kind of  _ heist _ .”

“We’re stealing Leia back,” Luke said, nodding. 

“Precisely,” Winter said. “But…” she hesitated. “This is going to take  _ time. _ ”

“Do we even have that much time to spare?” Luke asked. 

“We can start right away,” Lando said. “As soon as we drop you off.”

“What?” Luke asked. “I want to come too!”

Winter shot another glance towards the cockpit. “Not now. Not yet. Not till we have a plan in place. Having a Force-sensitive ally might help, but we need to figure out what we’re dealing with.”

“I think you’d be better off right now back with the Rebellion,” Lando said. 

Luke held back his arguments. They were right; right now he was at risk of doing far more harm than good. Back with the Rebel Alliance, there would be other things for him to do in the meantime. 

And he could try and get his head together. 

He owed everyone that much. 

That darkness in his mind had receded, but still lurked beneath the water of his thoughts. 

Yoda had been right about something, at least. There was darkness in him. 

Vader had been right about something too: all Luke had ever done was ignore it, hide it. 

Not confronting it didn’t make it go away. It had made it much worse. It meant that he wasn’t able to remember the hurt he had caused, that he would never have the chance to atone. It was the ultimate selfishness. 

He might have Vader’s blood in his veins, but that didn’t mean he had to become like him. 

There was another way. 

There had to be.

* * *

“Your compatriots were correct,” Commander Willard said after debriefing Luke. “We don’t have the resources right now to launch a rescue mission.”

Luke nodded. He had glossed over his time on Dagobah and, given the gravity of the situation on Bespin, Willard seemed content to let it go. It would take time to set up a new network of liaisons, now that the Empire had secured its hold on Cloud City and its resources.

He didn’t mention the revelations about Vader or Leia. 

“Of course, I’m not exactly thrilled to have lost two of our agents, especially now,” Willard added. “We’re approaching a very sensitive operation and could have used their assistance.”

“That is not be _quite_ the loss it would have been before now, actually,” Mon Mothma said with an air of pride around her. 

Luke’s mouth fell open a tiny bit. “The Bothans came through?”

Mon Mothma nodded. “We didn’t even have to  _ tell _ them that the Mon Cals had signed on. They learned about it on their own and are bringing the full might of the Spynet over to our side.”

“That’s…” Luke was impressed. “That was a good move you made on Mon Calamari. Thank you.”

“I am aware of that,” Mon Mothma said, almost amused. “But you are welcome.”

“So is there  _ anyone _ you could spare for Tatooine?” Luke asked. Surely this changed the equation. 

Willard shook his head. “I’m sorry, Your Highness, but until we’re in a stronger position, your friends are on their own.”

Luke wanted to pitch a fit, overturn a table,  _ something _ , but instead he nodded. “I understand. Is there anything else you need from me right now?”

“Next time you see the Corellian, remember to pay him the credits he won’t shut up about,” Willard said. “But otherwise, no. Thank you.”

Out in the corridor, Luke let out a long exhale. He hadn’t expected much, but his hopes were still dashed. 

“Hey,” said a pilot waiting outside Willard’s office. “Couldn’t help but overhear—you know where Leia is, then?”

Luke nodded, exhausted. “Somewhere on Tatooine.”

The pilot extended a hand. “Wedge Antilles. I’m a squadmate of hers. To be honest, we assumed the worst when she didn’t show up at Kilo. To know that she’s alive… well, when’s the mission?”

“You must have overheard that part too,” Luke said, confused. “Willard said that we couldn’t spare anyone.”

“And  _ I’m _ saying, ‘when is the mission?’” he said with a smile. “If you get my drift.”

Luke returned the smile. Wedge and the others were offering to help. 

“Willard’s going to spit blaster bolts when he finds out,” Luke pointed out. 

“What did he expect from a bunch of Rebels?” Wedge asked. “Anyway, when you need help, we’ll come running. Or flying, preferably.”

Luke nodded. “We’ll find her,” he said. 

“Sure we will,” Wedge agreed. “Whatever it takes.”


	12. Healing

The boy’s Force lightning had shorted out the entire breathing apparatus; it was only through the power of the Dark Side itself that Vader had managed to walk to his shuttle at all. 

If his concentration was perfect, he could coerce his ruined airways into functioning through the Force. 

It had never worked for so long before. His hatred was as cool and unyielding as the hull of a ship. None of the fire remained that had burned him up inside before. 

If his concentration was better. If he had perfect mastery of the Dark Side. It he was just a little more powerful… he could do it permanently. He would never need his mask again. 

Back in his meditation chamber aboard the Star Destroyer, he tried it once more. 

The Emperor had told him that they had died. He had  _ lied _ to Vader for no reason other than to chain him further to him. 

It was considered normal among the Sith for the servant to try and kill his master. For years, Vader had been too beaten down to try. But now his hatred of Palpatine was perfect. 

He felt his lungs start to work on their own. 

He inhaled. 

His children had survived. 

He was sorry to have killed the girl, of course. But still: better to not have to think of her mother every time he looked at her. And besides, Luke still lived. The boy whose eyes matched his own: blue as ice and twice as merciless. 

And with that burst of emotion, his concentration faltered. The old scar tissue returned. He gasped for air again, waited for the machinery that kept him alive to resume its usual function. 

Soon, though. Soon enough, he would have everything he wanted. 

The galaxy would be his to shape.

* * *

She was floating through space.

That wasn’t entirely right. She  _ felt _ as if she was floating in space. 

Some distant part of her knew that the rest of her had been frozen as hard as stone. She was on a ship, going to an unknown destination. 

But she was free from pain. Free from the injuries that had ravaged her body. 

Except for the one that burned in her heart. 

Vader was her father. 

Ben had lied to her. 

She hated them both right now.

What was now? Forever and nothing. There was no time where she was. Just emptiness and distant stars. 

Her body kept calling to her, though. 

She wanted to be done with it. But slowly, wearily, she returned to it. 

The Force was within her and all around her, just as it always was. She opened herself up to it as she had before. It washed through her, a stream that would have been crystal clear had it not been muddied by the pit of pain around her heart. 

But it was enough. 

Cell by cell, neuron by neuron, bit by bit, her body began to heal.


End file.
